


Night Flight

by Massanie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal, Angst, Blackmail, Bottom Harry, Dark, Implied Mpreg, Intrigue, Kidnapping, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Rough Sex, Slow Build, Slow To Update, Violence, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:12:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 224,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Massanie/pseuds/Massanie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harry becomes the first submissive Vykélari in over two centuries, Lucius wants his power bound to the Malfoy name by all means necessary. Now he only has to persuade Draco and his fiancé to kidnap and mate with him - which is actually no hardship with their instincts and Slytherin ambition. </p><p>The only problem: the submissive is not quite so submissive at all and keeping his son and son-in-law in line is proving to be more difficult than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 222

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I should warn everyone that I didn’t really read books 6 and 7, found them too frustrating and depressing… that means I’ll try to stick to the original story as best as I can without having read it. There are going to be some changes though: I am totally 100% refusing to accept the deaths of Tonks, Lupin and Fred. Honestly I cannot bear the thought of George being left behind and Teddy growing up without his parents.
> 
> I don’t even know yet if any of them will play any important role, but still I find even the thought too depressing…

It was the 9th of July, 1998, just a few days past the two-month mark after the Battle of Hogwarts, as wizards and witches in all of Britain had already started to call it in the euphoria that drowned the wizarding community after the Dark Lord’s fall.

It was to be a full moon that night; the 222nd full moon of Harry Potter’s life and although the young wizard didn’t know it yet, it would mean yet another pivotal turning point in his life.

* * *

  
“An unparalleled chaos!” Arthur Weasley said tiredly in answer to Ron’s inquiry of how things stood in the ministry, stabbing the slice of roast meat on his plate rather viciously – a highly unusual sight for the Weasley patron.

Immediately after Voldemort’s fall on the 2nd of May there had been a torrent of prosecutions and arrests. With their lord’s demise, the once-steely determination of his followers had collapsed like a tumbler. In the desperate attempt to spare themselves years of imprisonment, and worse, many tried to sell whatever information they could to the Aurors, whom, in turn, were so hopelessly understaffed that Ministry employees of other departments who were not already working to capacity were deployed with the duty of filing and evaluating that information.  
And that was an organisational nightmare.

“No one really knows what the other does. Information gets scrambled, or lost. We have too few capable people available to validate and keep track of everything, never mind finding the connections between all those hints we get. And that is why people like Malfoy, who have the money and the right friends to get rid of compromising evidence and maybe even place false clues are going to go free!”

“He's not going to be sentenced?!” Ron exclaimed angrily.

“I don't think so, no. He claims that the Dark Lord black-mailed him with threats on his family. The same goes for the younger Malfoy, who has already been acquitted, as you well know.” With that, he glanced up from his dinner towards Harry briefly, his expression carefully blank, before he looked down again.

“Malfoy and his mother saved my life…” Harry stressed calmly, but inwards he was fighting with his irritation at the lack of understanding. Sometimes it felt as if his surrogate family blamed him for witnessing for the Slytherin who had been his arch-nemesis for so long and for his mother. He knew it wasn’t true, though they didn’t truly comprehend it either, and they didn’t allow any chance to mention it to lapse away. But, damn it, after everything he had seen and lived through, could anyone really blame him if he found such petty feuds pointless? Did anyone even remember the real reason behind their futile, time-consuming fights?  
'Because Malfoy was a snobbish prat in his youth' just sounded somewhat ridiculous and irrelevant after having died – death certainly had a way of putting things into perspective.  
Especially since Draco had saved him with his silence in Malfoy Manor, since Narcissa had saved him with her clever lie and he himself had saved Draco from the fiendfyre, closing the circle, Harry found it hard to keep holding onto their shared hatred, steeped in tradition though it might be. Whenever he thought of the two of them he remembered that moment when Narcissa had whispered to him, asking about her son and he kept seeing the fear for her child in the proud woman’s eyes just in front of his inner eye. No, somehow after all that he just couldn’t allow her and her son to go to prison.

Perhaps Lucius would deserve such a fate, but he was a different matter altogether.

Oh, Harry knew very well that Voldemort had threatened the son to keep the parents in line and vice versa. However the Malfoy patron had been a Death Eater long before then and had killed and tortured more than his fair share of muggles and muggle-borns, which _wasn’t_ true for Narcissa and Draco Malfoy. So, who was he to judge them?

Flushing, he became well aware of the raised eyebrows directed his way and he coughed slightly, never really comfortable with being in the middle of so much criticising attention.  
“You know, the way it seemed to me, what they said was very likely true…” he said finally, and tensed in spite of himself; because he knew whatever he said would not save him from this discussion. That much he had learned over the previous week after the Malfoy heir’s acquittal.

“Oh, come on, mate!” Ron spoke up, his patronizing voice and expression telling the dark haired wizard just how naïve he thought him to be.  
“Draco Malfoy is a cruel, petty tyrant; always was and always will be. His father was a Death Eater; he tortured and killed people, for fun! We all _know_ the ferret would have, too, but for the fact that he's an insufferable coward!”

“I think being afraid and having a conscience is something different, Ron. And you know that I’m not speaking of Lucius Malfoy.”

“And I think you are too nice for the world, sometimes, Harry.” Ginny quipped in an affectionate voice that was somehow just as patronizing as Ron’s had been. ”It’s not as if anyone in that family wouldn't deserve…”

“Do we _have_ to have this discussion every evening?” Molly called out, more loudly than necessary to silence her daughter and everyone else; her pointed glance rushed over them all with furious disapproval – over Ginny’s flushing face and Ron’s defiant glare that wilted under her own, to Arthur’s apologetic expression and at last to Harry. Her gaze remained on him.

Really, in a way Harry could sympathize with her but nonetheless he pressed his lips together tightly, irritated at being put off like that and at the way she kept _staring_. Why was it his fault now? If they didn’t want to hear him out, why did they bring it up in the first place?  
But still, he shrugged with a for-your-sake expression and let the matter rest. Merlin, he was tired of fighting.

“Are you alright, Harry dear?” Molly asked cautiously, still eying him. “You look awfully pale.”

“Fine,” he muttered, looking up from his now empty plate with what he hoped was an indifferent expression. “Really I…” but then his voice died away and he gasped for air in surprise and shock: a weird, tugging sensation overcame him like a shockwave that made him flinch. His fingers started to tingle and prick before they went painfully cold, the feeling spreading through his stiffening knuckles like frost and ice.  
It felt horribly as if his very life was pulled back from his limbs up into his torso, leaving them aching with weakness. And it just kept on retreating as if something ripped at the insubstantial force that kept him alive; the little sparks of magic running through his body.  
“Oh, god!” he muttered in sheer horror, shivers and violent tremors running down his spine, making his skin crawl and his body shake. Something was sucking up his magic from within!

Harry reached out, his fingers clawing at the table wood as he desperately tried to fight that black hole his magic was vanishing into. He bit his lips so hard he drew blood, the metallic taste exploding in his mouth, making him feel strangely sick, affecting him more than it normally would have. His limbs shook violently, whether from the horror that surged up in him, from the chills that seemed to have been implanted directly into his heart, or from weakness, he didn’t know; only vaguely did he hear the others call out for him as if through a haze.

Suddenly his eyes lost their focus and the next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, staring up at dizzying blobs of bright red and white and so many swirling colours in between. “Something … something is taking my magic…” he forced the hoarse words out, his green eyes staring up in wide-eyed terror.

Then it was gone. Just gone. He had never felt so weak and desperate and _vulnerable_  
The one thing that had gained him a home, a family, friends; that had protected him from his would-be murderers … it was gone. His magic was not there any longer!  
He had never been so painfully aware of how a muggle must feel without that inner power to strengthen them. He had always had it even though he hadn’t known it for the first eleven years of his life. Now it was gone and that loss was more bitter and terrible than he could have imagined.

In the next moment, pain exploded behind his eyes and his vision filled up quickly with small dots of nothingness that grew and melted together. Horrified he kept on watching as his sight fled, holding onto the last spots of colour until they, too, vanished into darkness.  
A panicked cry escaped him. He was blind.

Then that cruel, black something attacked his ears and he screamed as he felt as if acid was being poured into his ear canals. At least until his voice gave way rather abruptly, leaving him in mindless pain that rivalled that of the cruciatus curse, unable to relieve some of the agony with screams.

He lost his consciousness soon after.  



	2. Midnight Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos!

Malfoy Manor was currently the place of another, not necessarily less important, though certainly less dramatic, event: the engagement party of Draco Lucius Malfoy and Blaise Alain Zabini.

The news had come as quite a shocking surprise to Britain’s wizarding society. After all it had been merely a week prior that Draco Malfoy and his mother had been acquitted from their charges. Even more surprising for their closer friends and relatives was that it had been Blaise who had proposed to his long-time friend and lover. Equally as beautiful as his mother, the only Zabini scion was just as reserved as she was – at least around most people – and it had been the general opinion that if one of them would dare to take that next step, it would be Draco and not Blaise.

When it was rumoured that the attractive Italian had taken the Malfoy heir to one of his family’s estates in Italy immediately after the trial, obviously having correctly anticipated the results, most of their pureblood relatives and friends were therefore rightfully surprised; more so when Narcissa Malfoy began – just the following day – to extend invitations for her son’s engagement party, to be held in Malfoy Manor.

But then again, it was the second full moon after both of their 222nd and therefore the perfect date for such an occasion; even if Lucius Malfoy himself was not yet released from all of his charges. But really, that was just a matter of time anyway and as long as the Malfoy patron was able to attend – and he could, being conveniently under house arrest by force of an Unbreakable Vow until his own trial someday at the end of the month – one could ignore that unfortunate circumstance.

It was already past midnight and the circle of friends and family members had long since withdrawn to one of the manor’s larger and more festive parlours, a large, brightly illuminated room that reached out into the gardens behind the manor, visible through the impressive window front.  
That particular parlour was one of Narcissa’s masterpieces, one she had completely redesigned in a neoclassical style after she had wedded into the Malfoy family. Richly decorated, white pillars separated the tall windows that reached up to the high ceiling that in itself was covered by delicately chiselled mouldings. The aesthetic wallpaper, the curtains and the furniture’s upholstery were of different soft shades of green, blending beautifully and the settees, arm chairs, tea tables and other more decorative pieces of furniture were made of a pale wood with intricate carvings.  
It was what Narcissa privately called ‘her Arena’, the place where she could show just how gifted a social tactician she was. And indeed, mostly thanks to her the evening had so far been a full success: Narcissa was seemingly everywhere at once, steering conversations away from critical topics while ostensibly highlighting aspects of her guests that other’s would find interesting (which mostly meant profitable) enough to be polite, as well as ensuring that the more difficult personalities did not come into prolonged direct contact with each other. That, coupled with the fact that both families were highly influential in and of themselves, and very much interested in improving their own political and societal standing through each other, made the evening quite productive and enjoyable and both Blaise and Draco were very much relieved that their respective families seemed to get along just fine.

The evening, however, was drawing to a close and the newly engaged couple was just returning from seeing off the first of their guests – a great-aunt of Blaise’s and her husband – when Draco saw a house elf levitating a salver with a missive lying on the shining surface towards his father. The elf itself was standing unobtrusively at one side of the large parlour and his interest instantly piqued. The house elves had been directed to not disturb the party with any matter that could not be resolved in the morning, yet, here one was, and that meant it was something pressing.

Attentively, Draco watched as his father excused himself from the conversation with Blaise’s mother, Amalyne Zabini, and stepped aside to unfold the small piece of parchment, his mouth tightening in irritation as his eyes scanned the content. Then a moment later he glanced around the room and Draco followed his movements with narrowed eyes as his father strode over to his mother, gracefully manoeuvring around their guests.  
Gently, he touched her at the elbow to draw her attention and whispered something in her ear. Narcissa drew back, watching her pale blonde husband intently for a few moments before inclining her head.

And with that, Lucius Malfoy turned and left the room.

Draco frowned, his curiosity getting the better of him. However he was very much aware of Blaise’s presence next to him and why they were both here. This was their engagement party, one he couldn’t just leave.  
Suppressing a sigh, Draco turned just to find his boyfriend smirking at him with barely concealed amusement. No, his fiancé, he reminded himself with a smile. After three years of calling him the former, that would take some readjusting.

His smile widened as Blaise pulled him closer, locking his arms around his waist, leaning forwards to murmur lowly against his ear “Go on if you’d like.”

Draco merely cocked his head at his lover in mock offence, evading the other’s heady closeness. “I’m not in the habit of following or sneaking after my father…”

“Then let us go together.” Blaise said softly, knowing that his lover didn’t want anyone to hear of his concern for his father that he himself perceived as weakness. Blaise's warm eyes searched Draco’s pale, grey ones. “He seemed a little bit tense, and I _know_ you will be, too, until you’ve assured yourself that it’s nothing.”

“I don’t…”

“Come on, it’s not as if they would miss us.”

“Not yet." Draco relented. "But the first are about to leave and we have to see them off. It’s fine, really!” he added, when Blaise began to object.

“This is _our_ engagement party, Blaise, come, and let’s enjoy it.” and with that he steered his fiancé back towards their guests.

* * *

  
Lucius Malfoy stepped into his study and almost sneered in irritation at seeing the head of a young wizard in the fireplace. An unremarkable man with straggly, dirty-blond hair and a nervous flicker in his eyes that showed how uncomfortable he was in the presence of the former Death Eater in front of him. _’As he should be’_ Lucius thought indignantly.

“Healer McAuley, I presume?” he asked, forcing indifference into his voice, lest it might drip with disgust. He inclined his head slightly as he crossed the room and sat down in the leather-upholstered armchair in front of the fireplace.

“Mediwizard, Mr Malfoy." The young man corrected. "I am very sorry to disturb you.”  
He almost stuttered, and it was so painfully obvious that he couldn’t bring himself to meet the Malfoy patriarch’s steely gaze that Lucius felt his lips tighten again and quite impatiently, he waved for the other to continue. “I’m afraid I do not have much time, Mediwizard McAuley; we have guests.”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry. Your son’s engagement party, isn’t it? I read it in the announcement you made in the Daily Prophet –”

“Indeed,” Lucius drawled. “So, how may I be of assistance?”

The way the brunet took a deep breath told Lucius that this was going to be a long monologue full of evasions and unsatisfactory excuses. He almost sighed at the prospect.

“As a matter of fact, I contacted you because of your position as representative of the Vykélari community in Britain…”

Lucius allowed himself to raise an eyebrow in surprise and leaned forward ever so slightly. Well, _now_ the brat had his undivided attention.

“… you see, this evening we had an emergency. A young man. Showed signs of magical exhaustion; his senses had shut down… vision, hearing, smell, tactile sense; taste might have, too, we're not sure yet. Tested for curses, but negative. That lasted for about ha–”

“If you would come straight to the point.” Lucius interrupted, but he knew already where this was heading. A new Vykélari had come into his inheritance; one who hadn’t known beforehand that he even bore the genes. And it made him furious that those imbeciles of St Mungo’s hadn’t alerted him earlier when the youth had first come in. By now, that boy had been locked in his own body with no means of communication nor any knowledge of what was going on for almost four hours – since the moon had risen.  
This one was one of his own kind, an endangered race, for Merlin’s sake!

However that irritation paled in contrast to his curiosity. For centuries all Vykélari lines had carefully been tracked, every new-born registered. Either a grave mistake had been made or one of the lost lines had been reactivated. Therefore, he found himself quickly intrigued by the initially unwelcome interruption to his son’s engagement party.

“Yes, yes of course. I’m sorry Mr Malfoy…” If that impertinent fool would stop apologizing so much, he might be faster in getting his point across, Lucius thought impatiently; he needed more information...

“He shows many signs of a Vykélari transformation, but not all of them, so w-we, we were unsure … and the change is too slow, he has not grown at all, so we thought it was a curse. B-but he started growing wings, then, a-and Healer Cowan still thinks he is not a fledging Vykélari, because his claws and canines are much too small and the markings on his forehead and around his eyes and on his body in general are somehow wrong, but I still think we shouldn’t rule the possibility out without any proof and I finally decided to go against his–”

“McAuley!” Lucius interrupted the flood of words, his voice harsh and firm, and his eyes cold, hard and so utterly _piercing_. The brunet Mediwizard fell silent.

“At the moment I cannot leave the manor, as you might be aware of.” He smoothly said as if the matter of his trial at the end of the month was just a minor interruption to his every day routine. ”But the fledgling must be in the company of other Vykélari to survive his transformation. You have to bring him here to Malfoy Manor.”

“W-we cannot do that, Mr Malfoy” McAuley murmured, hesitating to look into the blonde’s grey eyes.

“And why is that?” Lucius growled inauspiciously.

“He is violent and completely throws off any charms at the moment. His magic keeps lashing out at anyone coming too close and his claws, they … Mr Malfoy they are poisonous. He struck one of the other Mediwizards before we managed to constrain him. The poison affected the blood coagulation. We’re still pouring blood replenishing potions into him, but the wounds just won’t stop bleeding and –”

“Then he can’t be a Vykélari. Our talons are not poisonous.”

“Couldn’t you send someone? He is growing weaker by the minute. At this rate, he won’t last the night… ”  
Idly, Lucius wondered why people still tried to play on his non-existent compassionate side. One might think the lack of success would deter people from making the effort. And yet, he might have relented in this case; with his trial so close at hand he could have used some positive publicity to his advantage, but as it stood now…

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, as your superior seems to be right: he can’t be one of my kind.”

“But I know I read about a Vykélari once that poisoned his enemies…” the young wizard insisted.

Lucius almost smirked, a hint of respect glinting in his silver eyes. It seemed the boy was not as stupid as he appeared to be; few knew about that long-lost trait.  
“You are right, submissive ones did indeed have that ability. But the last active line became extinct over 200 years ago, only having brought forth female descendants.” It was a pity, really, that the Vykélari genes were Y-linked and therefore could only be given to a male. No daughter could inherit them and therefore become a Vykélari or even transmit the genes to the next generation. Both submissive and dominant Vykélari were therefore essentially male in appearance, even though the submissive ones were able to bear children themselves.

“There have been other inactive lines bearing the submissive traits that brought forth a line of male descendants who were however not powerful enough to induce the submissive inheritance.” Lucius continued his explanation in a haughty tone of voice. The transformation on the 222nd full moon of a young fledgling was a highly precarious and straining event that only the magically powerful would be able to survive. Therefore the body of someone with the necessary Vykélari genes would only allow the genes’ activation and the induction of the transformation if there was a possibility of survival. That Lucius himself was an active Vykélari was proof of his outstanding magical strength – even before his transformation, he had lesser features that he was proud of – this was simply something that made him distinctly superior to others, something that should be acknowledged.

”But we only follow those inactive lines into the 7th generation. If the trait has not come forth until then, the line is declared extinct. I think one of the last families whose blood was weakened enough for that was the Potter line. Three generations ago we finally declared the line lost.” A small smile played over Lucius’ thin lips. It never failed to amuse him that the one to kill the Dark Lord – one of the most powerful wizards of his time – was someone whose family had grown so weak that it had lost the ability to reap the fruits of their pure blood.

‘Who would have thought that the boy would win the war in the end?’ Lucius thought somewhat wistfully; had he suspected that highly unlikely possibility he might have reconsidered his allegiances.

He was drawn from his thoughts however, as that insufferable Mediwizard licked over his lips nervously and all but breathed his name almost reverently “Mr Malfoy…”  
Lucius raised an eyebrow, reconsidering his earlier assessment. Maybe the youth was as stupid as he seemed.

“This _is_ about a Potter, Mr Malfoy … Harry Potter.”

It was a good thing that Lucius was already sitting.  
“I’m sending someone over. For now keep away from him and don’t agitate him further –”

* * *

  
When Lucius Malfoy returned to the parlour, most of the guests had luckily already made their farewells. Thank Merlin that this was not a formal dinner party crowded with untrustworthy cadgers and leeches. These were family members and trusted friends.  
But then again, that might be even worse in the current situation. Some of them were Vykélari dominants themselves, or were in contact with others of their kind. The news of a submissive fledging at that very moment might be disastrous for his plans.

The fledgling. It was much easier to think of the boy as that, instead of thinking ‘Harry Potter’ the Brat-With-The-Audacity-To-Live. As always, where that nuisance was concerned, fate was there to taunt him. It would have been so much easier if he had just had the grace to die the first time the Dark Lord came after him… But then again, the Potter line would not have been reactivated. Nevertheless, there were other lost lines. Why by Salazar Slytherin, couldn’t it have been someone else?

Well, it couldn’t be helped, he guessed, and he would be damned if the boy would strengthen any other family but his own. It was, after all, the first time that Mr Potter proved to be useful for _something_ , Lucius mused with a small smirk, he couldn’t take that chance away from him now, could he?

Intently, with a quite pleasant thrill of anticipation in his silver eyes, he scanned the room for another head of hair as pale as his own. There.  
Draco and Blaise stood together with both of their mothers, perfect. He couldn’t wait to break the news and it was actually a pity that they had guests because he wouldn’t be able to witness their more unguarded, open reactions. Whatever he told them would not shake the masks of indifference on their faces; that perfect emotional control. They were Malfoys, after all, and Zabinis of course. Nevertheless that couldn’t be helped as time was of the essence right now. After all, he didn't want the submissive fledgling to take any actual harm.

All four of them looked up as he strode over to them, a sly smirk on his narrow lips. Once or twice he had to excuse himself as other guests tried to engage him in conversation until he came to stand next to the formidable quartet.

Both Draco and Blaise had an undeniable resemblance to their mothers, even after their inheritance which had left them three inches taller and the muscles on their arms and torso more defined, though still lean. Their features, which had always been finely chiselled, seemed harder now, not quite as delicate, but more exotic with high cheekbones and square jaws, Blaise perhaps a little bit more so than Draco.  
No, the resemblance to their mothers was more due to a certain dangerous, natural elegance and grace in their posture and every movement. They were predators, just like Lucius himself.

A fine son-in-law, and an even finer son (in his opinion). If anyone should get the power-boost of mating a submissive, it was them. Alas, if he wasn’t happily married himself… but then he remembered that the submissive in question _was Harry Potter_ ; and really, the boy couldn’t compare to Narcissa’s ruthless beauty and her cruel wit that he loved so much. He probably wouldn’t be able to suffer that saviour-complex all the time; and that might lead to a massacre. No, Narcissa was perfect for him, he thought, grazing her with his eyes.

Lucius’ smirk widened almost unnoticeably as he saw the unvoiced questions behind his wife’s piercing eyes, knowing she was too proud to give in and word them. Hmm, but there was no time for teasing now. What a pity.

“I just got very interesting news from St Mungo’s… As it seems, a new Vykélari from one of the lost lines has just come into his inheritance.”  
Four sets of eyes watched him carefully, trying to gauge him but unable to and that knowledge was almost as good as seeing the unabashed surprise on their faces would they have been without company.

“Which line?” Draco asked, his lips barely moving.

“A submissive.” Lucius answered, watching for the brief flash of surprise that he knew he would see in his son’s eyes and hiding his smugness as he did.  
”The poor thing is unaware of that fact, not having regained his senses as of yet. He will need to be brought to the Manor, of course. I would ask the two of you to get him, seeing as that is impossible for me.”

Draco and Blaise briefly locked gazes. They knew what a mating would entail, of course, and it was obvious that the Malfoy patron intended for them to make the submissive theirs… But the time was extremely inconvenient. Even knowing that a submissive would ultimately allow a deeper bond to form between them and increase their magical power many times over – even though the submissive would ensure maintenance of their family line without having to adopt, did they want to put their engagement under the stress of forcing someone new into their life? Into their _bed_?

They were blessed enough to have escaped an arranged marriage, and be allowed to be with the one they loved. Their relationship had not always been easy, as Blaise and Draco were naturally dominant – not only because of their heritage – but they had been coping just fine. Forcing an unwilling third partner into a mating bond might destroy all the peace they had fought for and they were not too keen on the strife that was bound to erupt if they didn’t keep a tight leash on the submissive, which was not at all what they wanted.  
Lucius might have enjoyed dominating someone, or using his instincts against him to subdue him, but Draco did not and neither did Blaise. At least not someone meant to be a spouse.

“Who is it?” Blaise asked, his arm coming to rest around Draco’s waist in a search for closeness. With the other hand, he brought his glass to his lips, sipping the exquisite wine.

“Harry Potter.”

Blaise cursed the Malfoy patriarch’s sadistic streak with the little breath he had as he choked on his wine and felt his shock and surprise echoed in the small flinch of his fiancé’s shoulders, before he managed to disentangle his arm and cover his mouth as he coughed.

Next to him, Draco leaned forward abruptly and hissed. “We cannot do that… _I_ can’t.”

“And why is that?” His father asked, one eyebrow raised curiously.

“I owe him a life-debt! I cannot possibly repay that by forcing him to mate!”

“I never said anything of the sort, Draco.” His father drawled in a pointless, futile attempt of appearing innocent.

Draco merely sneered back “Of course not…”

“The words you always put into my mouth…” Lucius smirked.

“Besides,” Narcissa spoke up, her tone soft and complacent, “he owes me one as well.”

“Be that as it may,” Lucius said, taking over the conversation again, ”at the moment he is using up his magic for his transformation and it seems he wasn’t as well-rested as a Vykélari fledgling should be before it started. That and the fact that those imbeciles of healers and Mediwizards have agitated him enough to make his magic turn its focus from the transformation and retaliate, well… he is more weakened than he should be.  
The healers fear he won’t survive the night. You can repay your debt by bringing him here: between you and Blaise, you should be able to control and guide his raging magic and keep it from lashing out against everyone else.”

“Why don’t you bring him here and I organize a portkey to our mansion in Italy?” Amalyne spoke up, her voice deep and calm and almost purring. ”You know the uncle of Blaise’s father is a healer with some experience on Vykélari.”  
Of course he would be, seeing as Blaise’s father had been a Vykélari himself; It had been a surprise initially that they wanted to stay in contact after his sudden and very tragic death, but for Blaise’s sake, of course, they had.

It would be perfect: a beautiful, large villa with a spacious park, including a large pool and access to the beach; all of which were guarded by a dizzying amount of privacy spells and actually belonged to Blaise as a part of his father’s heritage. It was perfect in every way. And after a few days, Amalyne was certain that nature and instincts would do their part to resolve the issue. Such power … it had to belong to her family. Not to mention the improvement in reputation it might entail. The Boy-Who-Lived, forever bound to her family.

It was a sentiment that Lucius and Narcissa obviously shared as they smiled at Amalyne in a way that would make a shark go green with envy.  
“What a wonderful idea!” Narcissa cooed dangerously, her eyes glinting.

“Now, you really should go.” Lucius said with a smirk. “I told them to leave the boy alone but still…”

Glaring at his mother and future parents-in-law, Blaise tapped his wine glass with his wand lightly, a bell-like sound filling the room. “May I have your attention for a few moments, please? Thank you. It was a wonderful evening, thank you all for coming and celebrating the news of our engagement with us. Unfortunately, at this very moment, a new Vykélari is unexpectedly fledging without elder supervision and both Draco and I are required to help him through the transition as Lucius’ substitutes. We therefore bid you all farewell and a good homeward journey. Again, thank you all for coming and for your gracious gifts.”

Just letting Blaise finish his little speech, Draco took his hand and, with a last glare at his parents and Blaise’s mother, he tugged his olive-skinned fiancé into the direction of the reception room and the fire-place there, without so much as a glance back at their guests. He was positively seething.  



	3. Locked-In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a lot for the kudos and thank you, adafrog, for commenting!
> 
> For now, as that is maybe interesting for all of you:  
> 1\. Harry is not going to be all submissive, don't worry, I always try to keep everyone in character  
> 2\. Again, don't worry: Draco and Blaise are not going to be abusive or downright cruel. Doesn't mean they'll be all forthcoming and nice.  
> 3\. I don't intend any bashing. At all. Even though this chapter seems to contain some Weasley-bashing. But it is mostly written from our two Slytherins’ POV and therefore naturally somewhat derogatory in regards to the Weasleys. And if they seem too rash or too rude, then remember that they are worrying over Harry and tired as hell and very frustrated.
> 
> Now please enjoy!

"I can't believe they're making us do this…" Blaise muttered. "A Gryffindor… No, the Gryffindor role model. I mean, honestly!"

"You'd better believe it. Our parents already seem quite intent on making him a part of the family. Though I'm not sure if they realise that no one will ever manage to groom Potter into something even remotely socially acceptable." Draco said, his voice cold and hard in irritation.

Impatiently he pressed again on the button of the elevator that read "Fourth Floor: Spell Damage" in large letters, willing the damn thing to go faster. Snidely he wrinkled his nose.  
"Really. Spell damage? Who in the hell put a fledgeling on the Spell Damage floor? This is so degrading."

Without saying anything, Blaise leaned over to press a soft kiss to Draco's shoulder, still clad in his dark green dress robes. Immediately Draco's posture softened and he in turn laid his cheek against his lover's forehead, rubbing tenderly against the soft skin, returning the affectionate gesture.

"Why must it always be Potter?" Draco murmured somewhat gloomily as Blaise straightened again.

"I thought you didn't hate him any longer…"

"I don't, not really. Doesn't mean I like him, though. Self-centred, do-gooder Gryffindor brat! You should have seen his complacent smirk when he returned my wand to me."

"Hmm… I did see it, Draco. I was there, remember? And to me it looked like that naïve you-were-an-asshole-I-was-an-asshole-and-let's-jus t-forget-it grin." With the way that Blaise flung out the words, one could think that was even worse in his opinion. It probably was.  
"You know, I don't think he is someone even capable of gloating; more than likely he was just trying his usual saviour-routine or trying to get you to like him like the rest of the world. Probably his next grand endeavour now that he has no Dark Lord to kill."

"Mm-hmm," Draco agreed just as the doors of the elevator opened to show a surprisingly full hallway, considering that it was one o'clock in the morning.

"Ah, and there are his loyal terriers." He continued with a sneer, his eyes travelling over the lot of redheads who all but looked like they had set up their camp on the fourth floor, sitting in various chairs, leaning against each other or sprawling and slouching on their seats. There were only four of them, however: the would-be Mrs. Potter who would now always stay the would-be Mrs. Potter (and really, that aspect of this current debacle almost had him smirk sardonically), whom was currently sleeping on one of the benches standing on the side of the wide hallway. Next to her sat that mudblood Granger rubbing the Weaslette's shoulder in silent comfort, her expression so troubled and tired it would have been painful to watch – if it wasn't a mud-blood, and if it wasn't Granger.  
They were framed on Granger's side by the Weasel and on the other side by those nasty, prank-loving twins, all of which had been gazing into empty space with an expression Draco couldn't quite pinpoint but they looked up as the two newcomers entered, and that weird look faded into a mixture of disgust and hate – Draco had never been really sure which of the two emotions might outweigh the other in regards to him, but he guessed it didn't really matter anyway, even less so right now. How ironic that he and Blaise were here to safe Britain's savior, the one and only this group of emotional children were always fussing over so much and all the read-heads did was…

"What are you doing here, Ferret?"

...picking a fight.

"Ron, stop it!" Granger said, obviously tired and frustrated, if the dark circles beneath her eyes were anything to go by. Next to her, the Weaslette stirred, blinking owlishly at the two former Slytherins, before her expression blended smoothly into an unattractive look of irritation.

"I don't think this is any of your business." Blaise said, his chin raised haughtily, taking a somewhat twisted pleasure in the fact that they would be allowed into Potter's hospital room while his friends obviously were not and were probably not even informed about anything going on, either. After all they were not related to their wonder-boy.

"What, Ferret? Need your lover to defend you now?" The Weasel sneered, foolishly ignoring his girlfriend, ogling Draco and Blaise's elegant dress robes, probably in pure envy. "Someone hexed your balls off? Didn't think that you'd miss them, bloody ponce!"

Draco grabbed his fiancé's arm as the olive-skinned man made a step towards the red-heads in a fit of rage.  
"Some other time, Blaise." He said, his voice loud and clear. "You have to understand how frustrating it must be, not getting anyone to share something of importance with but a filthy mud-blood." Even despite the enraged outcry of the three Weasley men who seemed about ready to attack them and the shouts of Granger and Weaslette to let it be, Draco smirked complacently. It was just so amusing that this respective insult never failed from having the desired effect.

Suddenly there was a succession of Silencio's and one by one, the Weasley's lapsed into silence. At the side of the corridor stood a very red, very enraged Mrs. Weasley and equally frowning Mr. Weasley along with a pair of hospital workers, all having their wands drawn.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley!" The elder of the two healers exclaimed angrily, stressing every word he spoke. "We are in a hospital! Please keep your family from disturbing the peace and quiet of our patients or I will have to insist you leave."

With that, he lifted the silence spell with a quick movement of his wand and made his way over two the two newcomers who had watched the debacle with blatant satisfaction. All the while the Weasley matriarch began to give her children a truly awe-inspiring tongue-lashing, that much Draco had to concede.

The healer reached over to shake hands first with Blaise and then Draco, the slender fingers dry and wrinkled. "Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Zabini, thank you for coming. If you'd follow me, please…"

"Gladly, Healer…" Draco said, raising an eyebrow in question while they passed the group of red heads, who were still glaring daggers at them… well, at least the younger generation.

"Cowan, Mr. Malfoy, Andrew Cowan. This is Mediwizard McAuley, who contacted your father." He said, gesturing towards the scrawny young man at his side, with straggly, dirty-blond hair and a somewhat dour expression marring his already not very handsome features.

"I must admit that I am not yet convinced you will be able to help us, as I've been saying his transformation differs certainly from a usual Vykélari transformation…" at that he threw an indignant look at the younger Mediwizard, clearly unimpressed that he had taken such liberties. McAuley's jaw tensed visibly, but he wisely refrained from commenting on his superior's critic.

"Why don't you let us be the judges of that, healer Cowan?" Blaise said as pleasantly as possible but still Draco heard the irritated undertone well enough. He wondered if the healer did. Probably not, he thought, as the man answered with an unconcerned hand wave.

"Yes, of course." The Healer relented and led them down the corridor, along rows of identical white doors until he stopped suddenly.

"Ah, here he is." Cowan laid his hand on the door handle, but he hesitated and didn't press it down; instead he looked back at the two young men with a nervous flicker to his eyes that had the two Slytherins pricking up their ears.  
"We had to restrain him, his wings also. He wouldn't stop beating with them and striking out whenever we tried to get closer and they are already very strong. We couldn't tend to him otherwise…"

Draco narrowed his eyes, wondering why the healer was already trying to justify himself. But he found himself to be mostly surprised at the flaring anger in his chest, anger on Potter's behalf.

He strangled that feeling viciously. Potter was merely a fellow Vykélari, a submissive one, who his instincts dictated him to protect, one who had saved his life, despite of being a pain in the ass otherwise. And that Cowan was wasting their time. That was all.  
But was it only him or had Blaise tensed at his side?

He didn't allow himself to glance over at his fiancé, though, or reach out for him. And though the vindictive voice in his head told him in a rather descriptive way what to do with the healer should he have mistreated a fellow Vykélari, even that Gryffindor prat, he found himself saying "I am sure everything you did was done with the best intentions. Now let us see what we can do for Mr. Potter, shall we?"

Inclining his head, his lips drawn into a thin, tense line, healer Cowan pushed the door open and entered, closely followed by the Mediwizard and then both Blaise and Draco.

Potter lay in the middle of the large room on his stomach, his upper body bare and shivering, and from his back, two enormous wings towered up over him. They shone like glittering emeralds in the brightly illuminated room, their feathers of varying shades of rich dark green that reflected the light just like the feathers of some birds do.  
Where they had broken through his skin, dry blood was clinging to the soft green downs and contrasting darkly against his pale skin.

Both of them were tightly bound together, forcing them stiffly behind Potter's back into an unnatural angle that must have been uncomfortable at first and then become rather painful with the passing of the hours. They were bent at the carpus so that they would not press against the ceiling and reached behind him up to the very end of the room, touching the wall nevertheless. Even the very tips of the huge wings were tightly bound together; fluttering agitatedly in an effort to break free that must have been exhausting.  
Draco and Blaise both knew very well how tiring it was at first to use the new, untrained muscles. But Potter was still fighting on for who knew how long, just like the Gryffindor he was, never caving in or giving up, despite how hopeless his battles were proving to be.

"Merlin!" Blaise whispered beside him and Draco could only share that sentiment.

Potter's legs and his arms were fixated to the bed with sturdy, thick leather straps. Where he had fought against them the hardest – at his ankles and his wrists – they had chafed the skin to an angry red, making Draco's blood boil in rage: Vykélari had very sensitive tactile senses that Potter must have already regained at this point of the transformation; the high sensibility meaning a high density of nerves in the region and that meant that superficial injuries hurt like hell. A healer should know that, and they seemed untreated as of yet!

It was the small chirping sounds the young man made, however, that was the final straw for both Draco and Blaise. It was no elaborate song, only disjointed, single notes that came instinctively to every Vykélari to use as a warning signal for others of their kind, saying 'Danger, don't come here!' to everyone who cared to listen.  
Not even when frightened and hurting like he was now was he calling for help, he was trying to keep others from falling into the trap he thought himself to be in. 'Foolish Gryffindor', Draco shook his head.

"Get out immediately!" he hissed, appalled for no reason he could think of, looking back and piercing both the old healer and the much younger Mediwizard with a fiery, hateful glance that promised pain and torture. He didn't care why he cared at the moment. He just did. And the sight of a creature meant for free, unbridled night flights, struggling with his bonds in fear and agony had made him furious beyond any sane thought.

"I don't think so, no." Cowan sniffed, unaware of what he was facing right then. "I will certainly not leave you alone with my patient."

A second later, Draco stood right in front of the other man, his silver eyes flashing and his teeth bared, lower and upper incisors unnaturally long and sharp. "Out!"  
The man stumbled backwards.

"Mr. Malfoy!" He squeaked, eyes wide and fearful. "I have to call the security if you…"

"Please do!" The Malfoy heir snarled, backing the other two men towards the door as he advanced predatorily on them. "But if you do, I promise I will take you to court for this and I will sue you for compensation so high that St Mungo's will be ruined along with you once I'm finished! Do I make myself clear?"  
He didn't wait for an answer, just grabbed the door and slammed it shut. The last thing he saw of the pair was how McAuley grasped the shoulders of healer Cowan and pulled him backwards to evade the wooden door. What a pity, he would have enjoyed the sound of Cowan's breaking nose.

After hastily casting a locking charm, Draco turned around to see Blaise already standing next to Potter, one hand hovering over a lean, naked shoulder, not yet touching, only letting the spooked Gryffindor feel his magic, the magical signature of another Vykélari that would sooth him somewhat.

Slowly, still shivering with rage, Draco made his way over. "We have to cut him loose."

"He really is one." Blaise whispered, his voice sounding strangely strangled.  
"I didn't believe it. But he … he feels like one."

Draco knew what his fiancé meant. Like a siren's song, that body called out to him as Potter's magic instinctively reached out to call adult Vykélari to his side, to ground him, help him during the transition. The powerful waves of magic were ebbing away somewhat now that Blaise was letting him know he was close.  
But still his body pulled him closer, almost magnetically, all pale, smooth, luxurious skin; the beautiful, colourful wings that screamed seductively of power and strength. The markings on his face were … nothing less than beautiful: a ribbon of a pale, unnamed colour covered his eyes and the ridge of his nose, ending just above his cheekbones on the lower side and just above his eyebrows on the upper side, softly blending into his unblemished skin. A human would not see it, Draco knew, because it was of a light ultraviolet that only those species with an additional photoreceptor or a shifted spectral range would see. Like birds … or Vykélari.

He himself and Blaise didn't have a mask like this one, but he found it beautiful and he instinctively knew that anyone with such bright markings would be a strong, desirable mate. Closing his eyes for a moment, Draco tried to fight down his sudden arousal, breathing deeply. God, that was so not the time for that...  
Now he knew why Blaise was standing behind Potter, to be able to evade that temptation... that bastard.

Once he felt calm enough, Draco opened his eyes again, taking in the deep emerald lines that drew an intricate pattern over the pale eye area, vanishing into the black hairline.  
Draco had to shake his head dazedly. The raven-black, silky texture of his tousled hair was further upset by deep green feathers that stuck out almost in random directions but generally backwards. Even in this form, the prat managed to have an untameable head of hair. It was unbelievable. But oddly enough it looked quite … just somehow in that very … not really weird but still incomprehensible … way … well, cute.

Draco blinked in disgust at himself but still couldn't help but let his eyes roam freely over the half-naked form laid out in front of him, taking in the lines drawn in the same emerald colour as the markings on his face that trailed over his naked, pale sides in elegant, arcing curves; starting above his ribcage and running down his sides, along his slender waist, crossing themselves playfully to vanish … somewhere beneath the waistband of horribly washed-out jeans that he really shouldn't think about.

At that very moment, Draco was half-relieved, half-disappointed that Potter was still partly dressed, but he did curse that healer for binding Potter's arms to his side and covering up most of those gorgeous markings.

"Oh God…" He groaned as silently as he was able to. Had that thought really come from his own mind?

Forcing himself to concentrate on the panicked, agonized look in those unseeing, teary emerald-green eyes and the small chirps Potter still continued to make, probably not even aware of it, Draco calmed. A bucket of ice water could not be as effective as the sounds of a frightened, hurting submissive.

"Help me cut away the bindings on his wings." He said, wincing at how hoarse his voice sounded.

Luckily, Blaise didn't comment on it and from the way he panted heavily, Draco thought that his fiancé might be fighting with similar problems himself.

A few slashes of their wands later, the leather bindings fell to the floor. For a second those emerald wings fluttered helplessly in mid-air, before collapsing feebly in a heap sideways to the ground, a startled and pained outcry leaving the dark haired boy's lips and Draco and Blaise both winced and looked at each other guiltily. They hadn't thought about how painfully cramped up Potter's wing muscles had to be after hours of having them bound in a very uncomfortable position.

"Sorry." Blaise muttered uselessly as Potter was still unable to hear him, and laid his much darker hands on the pale back between the twitching wings, gently rubbing the sore muscles there.

Immediately the former Gryffindor startled and strained against his bonds in rising panic at the unexpected touch; his wings rose, beating mindlessly around him, hitting against the ceiling and the walls. Both Blaise and Draco barely managed to dodge the strong appendages, jumping back from Potter's side to come to stand in front of him, at the headboard, where the emerald wings couldn't reach them.  
But the uncoordinated movements unbalanced the lightweight hospital bed to which Potter was still tied and almost immediately it started to tip over.

Cursing, Draco reached out with both hands to stabilize the bedstead while Blaise pressed forwards again, grasping one of the slim shoulders, and let his own magic touch the panicked creature in front of him once again, letting him know he was kindred.

That seemed to shock Potter into immobility quite effectively: his wings froze in mid-air, fluttering for some seconds before they fell to the ground, all strength drained from them.  
Draco sighed in relief and let go of the bed frame, lying one of his hands on Potter's cheek. Softly he let one finger trace the lower trim of that pale mask, letting sparks of his magic travel into the tear stained skin.

It only lasted for a few seconds, however, as Potter the prat started to strain against his bonds again half-heartedly and insisted on making those damned warning noises that made both Blaise and Draco feel uncomfortably chilled. Did the fool really want them to flee? Really, Gryffindor logic was so … unnatural. What happened to the good old survival instincts that made people accept help in desperate situations, not send their saviours away? Such so-called nobility was just plain stupid!  
And damn it, that sound sent shivers down Draco's spine…

"Will you shut it already!?" He exclaimed tartly, angered that his own very well-performing instincts made him react like this and embarrassed that he had let himself get carried away so far as to bestow affectionate gestures on his school enemy. And the worst was that Blaise's dark, warm eyes watched him with that damned understanding stare that pierced him right through.

"He can't hear you, Dragon." And then he curled his lips into that amused half-smile that Draco loved so much and damn, it, did he hate him sometimes.

"I know!" he hissed "But it's driving me mad!"

And Blaise, the loveable bastard, only chuckled at him.  
"Why don't you cut away those ties and I direct his magic to restructure his sense of hearing, so that we can tell him to stop it, hmm?"

"You're quite the bastard, you know that, don't you?"

"Actually, my parents were married," Blaise amended contemplatively while he moved to stand near Potter's head. "But even if I were, I'd be all yours, and you, Draco, have agreed to be all mine just last week." And with that he gripped his lover's neck and pulled him close for a searing, deep kiss, his other hand still resting on a blissfully oblivious Potter's shoulder, directing sparks of magic into it while pouring all the pent-up desperate hunger into the kiss.

It was Draco who broke away after some moments however, panting against the other's lips. "That is what we agreed upon, isn't it?" He whispered. "What happens to that now?"

"No one can force us, Draco! We will take him to Italy and grant him protection from other Vykélari until he has some control over his new powers and that is that. We'll see what happens from there. The only thing I envision with absolute certainty in my future is you, Draco. Everyone else is second."

"Everyone else." Draco repeated in a promise of his own, basking in the certainty that whatever happened, he would have Blaise at his side to deal with it, and Blaise would have him.

Then he stepped away and raised his wand to cut away those offending leather straps, his slender fingers gently pressing down on the limps he was freeing whenever Potter tried to move them, indicating him to stay silent, or else, of that he was sure, the beautiful idiot would manage to hurt himself further.

Blaise watched for a moment as Draco busied himself with Potter's constrains and felt the young man freeze with surprise beneath his fingers. Really, had Potter still not realised that someone was there to help him?

But he should probably not judge him for that, these were somewhat extraordinary circumstances right now and Potter had only his tactile sense to guide him. He remembered that phase of his own transformation well, how irritating he had found it; but he had known what was happening with him and hadn't been afraid. The Wizarding World's saviour was probably entitled to some irrational fear and doubt at the moment.

Putting his idle contemplation of their somewhat trying situation aside for the moment, Blaise gently directed the Vykélari's head into a straight line with his spine, which Potter allowed after his momentary resistance was soothed with another touch of Blaise's magic. It was unfortunate that this position hid that beautiful mask of Potter's, he thought with a deprecating frown, but he needed easy access to both of Potter's ears.

For a moment, he let his hands stroke through that silky thatch of dark emerald feathers and black hair, fascinated at how soft it was. He chuckled lowly in amusement, though, as Potter immediately tried to dislodge his hands skittishly and he cupped his ears instead to keep his head in position.  
"Hush, Potter." He murmured, not caring that Potter would never know. "You want to hear again, don't you?"

With that he closed his eyes, feeling out the currents of Potter's magic, pulling them closer to gather right beneath his hands. It was a heady feeling, downright addictive, all that power pulsing beneath his fingertips, waiting to be controlled.  
A deceptive delusion, he knew that. A Vykélari's magic tended to be self-willed almost, like a second sub consciousness, or maybe it was the Vykélari's sub consciousness that took control of his magic once in a while – who knew? The only thing that mattered was that it would lash out if it thought its owner to be in danger, it would defend him viciously, and it would defend itself if someone tried to take control over it.

But it would allow him to guide it during the transformation and should Potter ever mate – not that he would have a say in the matter anyway – his mates would have a much easier time trying to tame that power.

He couldn't say how much that thought displeased him.

"Shit!" he muttered, having momentarily lost his concentration and with it his hold over Potter's magic. Draco looked up at him in his unique, intense way, so full of intimate knowledge he held on Blaise, but never over him.

Well, almost never. Never outside of Draco's usual teasing would probably be more exact.  
"Need some help?" the blonde smirked as he sliced away at last the bindings on Potter's wrist and took them in his slender hands, careful to avoid the sore regions, to help the younger man into a sitting position. The former Gryffindor clutched at Draco's hands, clinging to him as if he was his lifeline.  
"Blaise, his hearing if you'd please…"

"His magic is not nearly as exhausted as they made it out to be." Blaise said somewhat defensively, coming to stand behind Potter, between those emerald wings. Again, he took the pale face between his hands again, resuming his guidance on Potter's magic. The younger man finally seemed to have accepted their presence as none-threatening and didn't fight against Blaise's hold, not even when Draco sneaked his arms around his torso tightly, trapping Potter's arms between them.

"Okay, now, Blaise!"

And Blaise gave Potter's wayward magic something to do, telling it to take his own auditory senses as a model to reform those of its owner. He felt that wave of power flood him like a tsunami, invading him inexorably and he wondered if his cousin who had guided his own transformation had felt like that: stripped bare before the magic of the young fledgeling that was Potter for Merlin's sake! It was a strangely intimate feeling that he really wasn't comfortable with.

Thankfully, it lasted for only a moment, before Potter's magic drew back into his body, beginning its complicated task. Then, as his auditory nerve began to reform, re-innervating his new sensors – a process that was not really painful, but itched– Potter began to struggle again, causing both Blaise and Draco to tighten their hold on him and not even the soothing sparkles of Draco's magic managed to quiet him as he moaned in discomfort.

Minutes the three of them stayed like that until finally Potter went rigid in Draco's arms, his unseeing eyes blinking in wonder. Then Draco watched those hated rose-petal lips open and letting escape a single chirp that seemed like it was about to erupt into a complex series of trills and high notes but was cut short when Potter shut his mouth, startled and shocked at the sound of his own voice.  
"Yes, Potter." Draco drawled. "Greet your syrinx."

And just when Draco had finished his sentence, Potter broke free with another high-pitched tone, his eyes still wide and blind, and the back of his flaying hand connected with Draco's jaw with an impressive thud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explanations: 
> 
> the syrinx is the vocal organ of birds. The actual sound is not produced by vocal cords as it is the case for mammals, but by the vibrations of the walls of the syrinx, the membrane tympaniformis. Its structure and position enable some birds to mimic human speech and/or produce more than one sound at a time


	4. With New Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again, adafrog, for the nice comment! And thanks everyone else for reading, bookmarking and for the kudos!
> 
> Now I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!

“Ouch! Potter!” Draco cursed, rubbing his sore jaw while his attacker scrambled backwards, or at least tried to: unused to the added weight on his back and still blind, he almost lost his footing and toppled backwards but he managed to catch himself just in time; courtesy of the added organ of equilibrium in his hip. Sometimes Draco hated nature, especially when it worked for his enemy and against him...

Irritated, he watched as his school-nemesis came to a halt in front of them with slightly spread wings, uncertainly but silently standing there, probably trying to pick out where the other two men were from sound alone. ‘As if he would be able to fend us off right now even if he knew where we are’ Draco thought.

“Brilliant, Draco! Very helpful!” Blaise hissed in annoyance, making Potter flinch and retreat further backwards. And just as if that was also Draco’s fault, Blaise glared at his fiancé somewhat fiercely and rolled his eyes as Draco cocked his head and answered with an indignant “What!? He hit me!”

Potter squared his shoulders and screeched at them, outraged at the accusation, the cry sounding very much like that of a furious eagle and nothing like the sweet songbird trills that had escaped him earlier. His lips moved as if to form a litany of swearwords while his hands flew to the pockets of his jeans, frantically searching for his wand that was not there, only managing to tear the worn fabric with his long talons and he hissed as he accidentally cut himself open. Blood seeped out from the hidden wounds, staining the blue jeans.

Immediately Blaise was in front of him, grasping both of his wrists in a bruising grip.  
“Stop that, idiot!” he hissed as the former Gryffindor began to struggle, pulling with angry determination to free his wrists, putting his whole weight behind it now that he thought to know his enemies’ identity.  
Still, Blaise with his taller and more muscular build was more than capable to handle the smaller Vykélari submissive and he held tight for a few moments, before releasing his hold quite abruptly. With a look of utter surprise on his expressive face, Potter stumbled backwards and fell against the wall with a pained expression as his wings were twisted beneath him. Disoriented and struggling for air, he didn’t put up much of a fight until it was practically too late and Draco and Blaise had pushed forwards and pressed him against the rough wallpaper of the hospital room, using their weight to immobilize the emerald, shimmering appendages as best as they could while holding Potter’s forearms in a tight grip against the wall, rendering the poisonous talons useless.

“Potter, you nitwit, stay still!” Draco growled dangerously against the younger man’s ear, his free hand wandering to the other’s waistband, pushing it down a bit, hoping to not see the clear, yellowish liquid that would mean Potter had managed to poison himself.

Merlin, it had been so long since a Vykélari submissive had come into his inheritance, he simply didn’t know if there was a natural antidote and if not, how to treat it…

* * *

  
Harry blinked for a moment, too stunned to really move. Was his school nemesis really trying to get into his pants!?

It didn’t take long after the thought formed in his mind that he started to struggle in earnest. He couldn’t believe it: Malfoy had cursed him, kidnapped and tortured him and now he molested him? Was there no limit to that bastard’s depravity? And he had witnessed for him, for god’s sake!

He screeched once more in a fit of rage, unable to throw his attackers off, but damn it, Harry had never been brought down by a Malfoy, and that was a fine tradition he didn’t intend on breaking with now! It would have been easier though, had he been able to goad the prat with words or even see the damn blonde…  
Still, this was just so not going to happen, whatever he had to do!

Whipping his head to the side from where he had heard Malfoy’s voice, he sunk his teeth into the tender flesh of the hand that had closed around his wrist with all his might. Immediately the sickeningly metallic tang of blood exploded in his mouth just as Malfoy started to curse and rant and growl next to him.

But before he could force the blonde prick to let go of his hand, someone grabbed his neck painfully tight and Harry felt the threat of something razor sharp against the skin of his throat and he froze, not daring to move for fear of being gutted.

“Let go!” The other man in the room hissed and he sounded so damn forceful and strong-willed; not at all like someone who was bribed into a friendship with the Malfoy heir like his usual cronies, defending him for solely egoistic purposes. No, that man – whoever it was, because Harry had only recognized Malfoy’s tell-tale sneer – he did it out of a determination that was fed by honest and deep feelings, maybe even love. Harry didn’t dare to disobey or to try something more extreme, not willing to find out what the other was prepared to do.  
Malfoy immediately snatched his hand away and Harry could hear him cast a healing charm, which was unfortunate as Harry had been sure he had gotten Malfoy’s wand-arm and that his captor might at least be somewhat incapacitated by that injury. Obviously not.

Harry held his breath, trying not to move and after a moment that cruel sharp something was taken away, replaced with soft fingertips that rewarded his obedience with the now almost familiar magical touch that had soothed him multiple times during the last minutes. And really, Harry didn’t want to react to it, but it made the skin on his neck tingle pleasantly and something inside of him stirred and purred, welcoming that unknown power and merging with it eagerly.

“Sshh, that’s it, Potter. We won’t hurt you.” The man whispered against his ear and involuntarily, Harry felt his muscles relax. Unbidden words rushed through his mind, telling him that Malfoy and the other could not be the same ones who had caused him so much pain earlier, they had come afterwards, they had freed him and whatever they had done, they had given him back his hearing. He needn’t fear them, needn’t fight them. They would help him.  
He was not really sure if that realisation was his own or another’s, planted into his mind, but it didn’t seem to matter as Harry was lulled by that comforting, protective power that seemed to have thrown a veil of sorts over him, weighting down on his limbs and fogging his mind. Suddenly his body seemed aware of the long hours he had been awake now, of how exhausted he was both physically and emotionally and in need of help; and he felt tired and calm and so very sleepy and strangely enough: safe.

Until another thought invaded his mind unbidden: if that comforting magic had come from Malfoy and that other man it meant that yes, they had been around him while he was bound, and yes they had cut away whatever had held him down _but_ they had _touched_ him throughout the procedure! Stroked his limbs and … had one of them really run his fingers through his hair? Malfoy? And Malfoy had tried to get into his pants!

He shuddered and began his struggles anew, weakly at first and nowhere near as desperate or as panicked as before, but still: he’d be damned if he let them molest him just like that!  
Slowly he fought himself through the heavy grogginess that had filled him so completely, allowing him to think clearer and to recognize the way his feelings and thoughts had been tampered with just a moment ago. Anger rose in him; he _hated_ the kind of mind-games Malfoy was trying to play with him…  
He fought harder, wanting nothing more than to get away.

“Potter, stop it!” Malfoy growled and the grip on his wrists tightened. “We need to check if you managed to poison yourself with your talons!”

Harry froze. _TALONS_!? What the hell was the git talking about?  
Carefully Harry bent his fingers towards the heel of his hand until something sharp and thin like a needle touched his skin. Oh, god, Malfoy was right… he had claws!

He gasped, or at least thought he did, but only a small chirp escaped his mouth, making him flinch and a terrible idea struck him: someone must have transfigured him! Maybe one of Voldemort’s former supporters wanting to take revenge... maybe he had been given a potion without noticing it and now he was becoming a monster!

“There is not much skin and flesh over the bone at this position. Even if you’re not poisoned, we need to see how deep the wound is.” That other man said, his voice deep and calm and Harry felt himself nodding, still busy trying to digest his newfound realisation. He had to get to Headmistress McGonagall; if there was someone skilled enough in transfigurations to change him back, it had to be his former transfiguration teacher. Surely, she would know what to do.  
He only needed to get away from his current companions … or captors? Which lead him to the question: why the hell were they here in the first place?

“Good.” The man murmured, and Harry could almost feel the smirk in his voice and he wanted nothing more than to disagree: if he should have described his current situation, ‘good’ would probably be the last word coming to his mind…  
“Draco will have a look at those wounds now. I trust you won’t hit, bite or scratch him anymore?”

Oh right, he had bitten Malfoy… of all the things he could have done he had _bitten_ him? He honestly didn’t really know what had come over him.  
Harry shook his head, trying to look nonchalant, but quite sure that he wasn’t succeeding with his face heating up like this. Well, biting _had_ seemed to be a good idea at the time, and he couldn’t really regret it either; his possibilities had been sadly limited…

The grip on his forearms loosened and he was being led forwards a bit, away from the wall so that whatever was sprouting out of his back wasn’t cramped up anymore. Harry almost sighed in relief, he would have, too, had not slender fingers at that very moment started to push down his jeans once more; only on the right side of his hip and just enough to bare the angry scratches he had inflicted upon himself, but still he felt even more uncomfortable than he had at the beginning of the second task in the tri-wizard tournament as he had stood in front of the whole school in his wet clothing, being laughed and stared at; then at least Harry had been sure that most eyes would be on Fleur and Cedric who in his opinion had cut much more of a fine figure than he could ever have. True, that had made him quite self-conscious but still…  
What had he been thinking about? Oh, god, yes … touching: this was Malfoy, and he was _touching_ him in a not so appropriate way! The tips of those slender fingers ghosted over his hip-bone and Harry honestly didn’t know what to think of the weird tingling sensation they left behind.

“Your magic seems to deal quite well on its own: it already healed the cuts…”  
Harry couldn’t follow past the first two words and forgetting everything else for that moment, he reached down to lay his hands on Malfoy’s, careful not to scratch him. The hand that inspected his wounds stilled and Harry moved his face so that he thought he might have been looking at Malfoy, wishing he could see him, see what he saw…

“What?” the prat asked and Harry could only answer with a quiet half-sob-half-trill.

His magic.

Draco had said his magic was there. It was not gone, it was there, working for him… but… why then couldn’t he access it?

“Potter?” Malfoy asked again but Harry shook his head, removed the blonde’s hand from his hip and awkwardly pulled his trousers up again, hating the fact that he was unable to answer, to ask questions of his own and to tell the idiot to _stop touching him!_

“Okay, fine. Listen, Potter…” Draco snarled.

“Draco.” The other man cut in, his tone warning the blonde to be silent, before he addressed the former Gryffindor. “Potter, do you want to lie down again?”

Lying down on his stomach with two molesting Slytherins in the same room? Harry shook his head, tapping his forehead at the speaker with an incredulous expression.

“Right,” the man snorted “well, then… let me… just stay still for a moment… Draco, help me…” A second later two pairs of hands took hold of the appendages on his back, moving and folding them until Harry felt a feathery blanket laying itself around his shoulders and he was able to straighten up without problems, the added weight on his back more evenly distributed around his body axis.  
He absolutely refused to acknowledge what those feathers seemed to imply.

“That should be more comfortable. I remember that I found it difficult at the beginning to keep my balance if I kept my wings unfolded.” Oh Merlin, Harry thought, blanching, it was true: he had wings! And that third man spoke as if it was just natural and furthermore as if it was _permanent_ … Harry really felt like crying, or better yet: screaming.

“Blaise, we really should proceed. We have three and a half hours until the moon sets.”

Harry huffed in frustration, upset that he didn’t understand what was going on, and unbeknownst to him, the feathers in his hair raised with his discomfort, letting him appear slightly taller than he actually was and making Draco and Blaise smirk at each other in amusement. It was so easy to read someone who was unaware of his body language.

“You are currently receiving your inheritance, Potter. Do you know what that means?” Draco asked, the smile in his voice still apparent; but he made it a rhetoric question, not waiting for an answer before continuing. “Of course not. The male Potter line carries a set of genes encoding different characteristics of a magical creature, a Vykélari to be more specific. Unfortunately your ancestors were not powerful enough to even potentially survive the transformation, so the gene expression was suppressed. Be that as it may, it seems _you_ are powerful enough and are currently going through your first transformation. Could you follow me so far?”

Harry nodded, dazedly, but inwardly he felt as if his world had been changed into a sphere of millimetre-thin glass that was cracked by his many questions: would he regain control over his magic, would he ever see again? How would he look like? He didn’t really care about the latter but still he didn’t want to be stared at any more and he didn’t know how Ginny would react…  
Only one false answer to any of these questions might shatter it all. And that made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable.

“When the full moon rose this evening, your magic drew back from your control, so you wouldn’t exhaust it, and shattered all those senses that would need to be rebuilt. Now it is basically learning how your new sensory organs should look like, it feels them out so you will be able to transform subconsciously without even thinking about what exactly your magic should do. It has already started to do that, didn’t it? You probably can taste and smell again, though not really much better than before and you should have a very good sense of balance right now and your tactile sense should be rather sensitive.”

Harry nodded a little bit more confidently. What Malfoy had told him so far sounded rather reassuring, as if everything he had lost would return in some way or another, and his words implied that he might be able to transform back … and who would have thought that Malfoy could explain so well without sounding too haughty?

“But your hearing and vision are rather different and your magic needs help to find out what exactly it is supposed to do…”

“I had it use my own aural sense as a model.” The other – Blaise, Harry remembered – continued. Wasn’t Blaise Zabini one of Malfoy’s more silent, more intelligent cronies during school? He would have to ask Ginny…

”We will have to do the same with your vision. After that, your magic will close itself off and expand your magical core. For this purpose, it will exhaust itself. You will fall unconscious and suffer from magical exhaustion for a few days. That is absolutely normal. When you awake and your magic has replenished itself, you will be able to transform back into your human body. Got that?”

Harry nodded again, his breathing a little bit fast but still he felt much better. He would be able to transform back. Everything was only a terminable change.  
Now he at least knew what was happening – if those two Slytherins weren’t lying to him, which was rather unlikely seeing as Malfoy owed him a life debt. Ron had always said that purebloods took life debts quite seriously. That was probably the reason why they were helping him now: they were paying off Malfoy’s debt.  
It was a logical explanation, one he could hold on to. Now he only needed to endure whatever the next hours held for him; only three and a half hours, Malfoy had said. Nothing he couldn’t take and then he would go back to the Weasleys and together with Ron and Hermione he would learn to live with whatever this so-called inheritance might entail.

Determined, Harry reached out into the direction where he had heard Blaise’s voice coming from, feeling for him. His wrist was grasped though, before he had encountered anything but thin air.  
“Careful, Potter! You don’t want to injure anyone with those talons now, do you?”

Harry shook his head but gestured towards his eyes with is free hand. God, not being able to speak was so frustrating… fortunately the other two men seemed to have understood what he wanted: One of them came to stand behind him again, laid one hand on his forehead and guided his head backwards until it rested on a hard, muscular shoulder. Harry frowned for a moment, becoming aware that he must be at least a few inches smaller.  
Then the slender hands wound around his chest and grasped his wrists, crossing them in front of him, holding them tightly. Licking over his lips nervously, Harry wondered if he should allow himself to be restrained that way but he reminded himself that they had done it before when giving him back his hearing and it had proven to be a good decision: he would have tried to pry his head free of Blaise’s hands otherwise and stop that maddening itching. He might have severely injured himself with his talons. And still there was the reassuring matter of the life-debt between them.  
So he allowed it, but he tensed nonetheless, especially when feeling the silken material of the other’s robes against his bare back.

“Relax!” Draco whispered against his skin, his breath tickling the skin on Harry’s throat, as his head was still lying on the blonde’s shoulder, and Draco’s voice sounded strangely deep and breathless, making Harry shiver.  
“And try to keep as still as possible” And Draco smirked, he must be smirking, Harry thought, and they must have noticed that Draco’s closeness and the way the blonde’s body had folded around his naked torso made his skin crawl, not in an entirely negative way. And gods, it was all so much more intense because he couldn’t see a damn thing!

Then cool fingers touched his eye-lids, making them flutter close in reaction and once again that warm feeling of familiarity spread into his body. That pulsating, powerful something that he now guessed must be his magic – if Malfoy’s explanations were anything to go by – reacted immediately, rushing out of his body, following the gradient of Blaise’s own magic into the other man, leaving Harry feeling empty and weak and he would have slumped down if not for Draco’s hold on him.  
But the feeling of vulnerability was easier to bear now that he knew what was happening and who was there with him, even if he would never have thought of them as allies.

Then suddenly power flooded him again, dancing along his skin for a moment before penetrating it, invading him, rushing along his bone structure upwards, along his spine, into the back of his skull and he gasped, or rather chirped again at the strange, tingling sensation. It flew along his cheekbones, vanishing into the eyeballs. Harry squeezed his eyes shut.  
For a moment, nothing happened and only Harry’s rapid panting permeated the cool air in the hospital room, before Harry reared up, pressing back against Malfoy’s chest, gritting his teeth against the unbearable itching in the back of his eyes where his magic re-grew his retina.  
The transformation be damned, he needed it to stop before he lost his mind! He writhed and squirmed in Malfoy’s arms, trying to free his hands and tear and scratch until it stopped itching! An eagle-scream tore from his lips, gaining in volume and pitching until he didn’t have any more air.  
After some minutes, as suddenly as it had come the feeling subsided a bit as his magic drew back into his skull, forming the optic nerve in its wake. Harry swallowed, his throat dry, too exhausted to really feel any relief.

“Open your eyes, Harry.” Draco whispered into his ear and Harry complied, not even realising that the Slytherin had called him by his surname. His eyelids felt heavy as they fluttered open and he frowned: everything was white, one single surface without any structure or pattern to it. Had something gone wrong?

He chirped questioningly, a little bit insecure. In front of him, Blaise grasped his shoulders to steady him, while Draco released his hold and moved around him. “You’ll love this…” the blonde said, no malice or mocking in his voice.

And then colour exploded in his field of vision, the area parting into a rough mosaic of white background with two green figures in front of him, the image refining itself more and more, gaining in detail and three-dimensionality and after endless hours of darkness it was breath-taking and wonderful and he felt tears gathering in his eyes, spilling over and running down his cheeks.

Now he could make out Malfoy’s pale skin and hair and it seemed to _shine_ in a colour he had no name for and he saw the black, short hair and olive skin of Zabini that, too, was just more in colour than he could ever have imagined, streaked with various shades of that unnameable hue.

More and more details appeared, and Harry stared and stared, unable to look away as the dark shadows in the eye areas formed into elaborate, half-translucent masks covering the brows and cheekbones; pale white gold crowning Malfoy’s silver eyes and dark bronze lining Zabini’s pools of onyx. Both masks were decorated with swirls of lighter or darker shades; Harry had never seen anything like this.

“Do you like what you see, Potter?” Zabini asked, sounding dead serious despite his teasing smile.

Harry knew he must look like a complete idiot, staring open-mouthed at the two Slytherins like that, but damn it, they were so freaking handsome and _strong_ with those markings… powerful; and should he even be thinking things like that?  
He flushed, lowering his gaze only to feel his chin lifted by Zabini’s gentle, bronzed fingers. “Quite alright, Potter…”

Harry narrowed his eyes. Enough was enough. After all, he had been through that night he certainly didn’t need to take their taunting. God, if he could only talk back!  
He lifted his clawed hand to slap away Blaise’s hand but he never made it for at that moment Harry crumpled and he would have fallen had not Draco – or was it Zabini – caught him and lowered him to the ground carefully.

“Watch it! It’s alright, remember? Your magical core will now expand itself.”

Harry honestly didn’t believe one moment that that was what was happening to him. He had felt magical exhaustion before and god, this felt as if he was casting a very powerful curse that bled his magic dry… he tried to convey his doubts, shaking his head.  
“Sshh.” One of them said and fingers stroked through his hair again. Then everything went black for the second time that night.

* * *

  
Draco grinned at his fiancé “You really are a bastard, Blaise! Teasing him seconds before you knew the last stage of his transformation started.“

“That’s why you love me so much. Besides it was only fair after he teased us the whole time with that body just screaming ‘mark me’.”

Thoughtfully, Draco observed Blaise. “You didn’t change your mind, now, did you? Because biting and hitting me did nothing to endear him to me…”

Blaise chuckled, smiling at his pale-eyed lover and shook his head. “No, I’d always choose you, Dragon if it came to that point. Though I have to admit he is pretty fetching, the transformation did wonders for his appearance. And as for your other objections: You know you would find him utterly, soul-destroyingly boring if he wasn’t behaving like a Hippogriff towards you all the time.”

For a moment, there was silence between them until Draco gave a conceding shrug. What could he say? Blaise was after all right…  
“Now let us have that imbecile of a healer clear the hallway of Weasels and take Potter back to the manor. I really don’t fancy explaining to them why and where we are taking their saviour.”  
With a wry grin, he bowed over the unconscious form of his former school-nemesis and whispered “When next you wake, Potter, you’ll be joining us for a nice little holiday in Italy…”  
He still didn’t know how he felt about that.

“We will have a hell of a job trying to keep him there, you realise that?” Blaise said as he bowed down to pick up Potter’s unconscious form.

“Yeah, I know…” Draco conceded, standing up and moving towards the door to inform that Cowan. “But whatever happens and wherever he’ll go, in the end we’ll always be the first he’s ever seen with his new eyes, before even seeing himself… he’ll never forget that.” And with those smug words and a smirk on his lips, Draco left.  



	5. Debates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos! And thank you, lexisgroundednow, for commenting!
> 
> OK, this is a Blaise/Draco/Harry free chapter, but I hope you will like it nonetheless...

It was the night after his son's engagement party, the night after The Submissive had appeared out of nowhere and fledged - Lucius really couldn't bring himself to speak of the Potter brat by his name and simultaneously think of him as the future bearer of his grandchildren yet; that was ... it was just … gross.  
However that be, that very night found the Malfoy patriarch in the manor's library, deeply buried in scrolls, mouldy tomes and small diaries written in neat, elegant handwriting that had been accumulated by his family over the decades, the centuries; or had been written by his ancestors themselves.

One by one he pulled the yellowed documents from their respective places in the tall, dark bookshelves and spread them out on one of the brightly illuminated tables to brood over his lecture, trying to find out as much as he could about Vykélari mating habits and submissives in general.  
The yield however, was scarce at best and each document was quickly discarded and brought back to its rightful place by a House Elf again.

It seemed that after the Potter line had been declared extinct three generations - almost seventy years - ago, the documentation on that topic had been flagitiously neglected. Now they paid the price.

All Lucius had found out was that a submissive would quickly grow fascinated with powerful, extravagant and complicated magic. One of his ancestors had actually written in his diary that he had wooed his just fledged husband with a 'dance of magic, a stream of passion, aggression, desire and devotion; the promise of wondrous and mysterious things; a delicate balance between obeying the symbolism and laws of magic and daring to go beyond them' - whatever that meant. Reading those lines, Lucius had to wonder if the presence of a submissive was somehow affecting a Vykélari's sense of reality. Surely no ancestor of his would have used such language if he was in his right mind…

Lucius leaned back in his arm chair, rubbing over his aching temples, feeling worn out and frustrated. The whole matter was, frankly, utterly maddening: he wante¬¬d that submissive bound to the Malfoy name, he couldn't express in words just how much he wanted that and none of his ancestors had deemed it necessary to write their experiences with submissives down! And damn it, it was too delicate a matter for risky experiments…

He didn't turn around when he heard the rhythmic clicks of heels on the wooden panels of the library, nor did he acknowledge the presence of his wife until she stood directly behind him and laid her hands onto his shoulders, stroking out and kneading his hard, tightly wound muscles. Only his pride kept him from moaning right then and there as he relaxed beneath her skilled touch.  
Then Narcissa bowed down, her lips almost touching his ears.  
"Amalyne is right, you know, Lucius," she breathed against his ear softly. "Blaise and Draco are Slytherins: too ambitious to ignore the power right in front of them. It will seduce them and make them want to possess and control it. And they will take it in due time. But your son is _your_ son, Lucius:" ever so gently Narcissa took her husband's chin between her fingers and turned his head around to capture the intense grey of his eyes. A smile played around her lips as if indecisive about coming forward or not.  
"Strong-willed and stubborn just as much as Blaise is. They will not want your intervention, nor will they allow or accept it."

With that Narcissa leaned forward and kissed the pale lips harshly, hungrily, her fingers moving from Lucius' jaw to cup his cheek before she forced him away again. "Power, Lucius, is what makes all Malfoys weak-kneed."

But she allowed him to stroke over her slightly swollen lips with his thumb and bit it teasingly, never looking away from his sparkling gaze. "I love you, Cissy."

"I know." She whispered back, cocking one elegantly curved eyebrow teasingly as she straightened herself and turned to leave. Lucius watched her measured, graceful steps, the sway of her slender hips. Gods, how he loved her…

But she halted at the door and threw him a look over her shoulder, her eyes blazing as she saw him observing her.  
"By the way, dear: Severus is waiting downstairs and you know how he gets when he's away from his toys for too long, so I suggest you join him before he decides to poison your liquor or curse your arm chair again."  
She paused for a moment, her lips curled in amusement as she remembered the one or the other incident when such a thing had happened. "Mordred, Lucius, I never understood your friendship!"

* * *

  
Severus Snape halted for a moment as he strode into the parlour that he always favoured when coming to the Manor. It was smaller than most, plainer and therefore more to his liking.  
However, it was not the unpretentious room's interior that startled him, but a life-sized portrait leaning against the cold fireplace in front of a set of throne like arm chairs with tall, stiff backrests that he knew from experience were more comfortable than they looked.

Recovering his poise almost immediately, Severus bowed lowly, a moment longer than politeness would have demanded of him, but really, he needed the additional moment to mask the amused smirk threatening to spread over his face. Was this Narcissa's way of telling him not to prank his husband anymore?

The portrait to which he had bowed - it was the only one he would ever show that much respect to, including the picture of Dumbledore in Hogwarts - chuckled lowly.  
"Well, well, well." The man in it drawled. "If it isn't the young Prince."  
He was a tall, lean man with snow white hair and piercing ice blue eyes, bluer than Lucius' or Draco's grey ones but nonetheless he showed obvious similarities with the current Malfoy patriarch and heir: the paleness of his long hair and skin, his poise, the arrogance that became apparent in his eyes and the lines around his thin lips.  
Though Severus had to admit that Draco had learned valuable lessons in that regard during the war.

And yet, this Malfoy was special to him, because under the tutelage of Cygnus Malfoy's painting, Severus had learned more about the finer arts of potions than any book or professor had ever managed to teach him.  
Lucius had always persuaded his father Abraxas to let Severus brew his potions in one of the Manor's dungeons and take the picture of Cygnus with him. He didn't know what his friend had told the old Malfoy; probably that it would be highly beneficial to have a potions master close to the family and devoted to them. Severus really didn't care.

"You didn't show yourself for quite some time, boy." The white haired man eyed him intently, and only due to his longstanding acquaintance with Cygnus' painting did Severus recognize the faint concern resonating in the strong, haughty voice. He inclined his head slightly in concession.  
"I would ask for your forgiveness, if I thought you would give it."

"I wouldn't expect such good manners from a Half-Blood anyway." The comment didn't hold any sting, not from him, not anymore. He had fought hard for Cygnus Malfoy's respect and he knew he had it.  
"Tell me, Prince, how are your studies?"

"Unfortunately I haven't had much time, lately. Surely even your painted self couldn't have ignored that there was a war? I lost count of the numbers of trials I had to attend as a witness during the past month!"

"Petty excuses do not suit you, Severus. I thought you wanted to try out your idea on that spying potion?"

" _Your_ idea on that spying potion, Sir." Severus granted with a small hand-wave. "And I did. I dare say it is a rather beautiful thing, and very helpful in keeping your descendants out of trouble."

He had used the dark, clear liquid that shone coldly as if suffused by moonlight on every one of the three Ministry officials working on 'the Malfoy case'. It had been very difficult since the potion needed to be applied to the target's eye but after getting one of the Malfoy House-Elves to learn how to levitate single drops of the liquid it had been easy. Since the drops were dark, the poor victims had merely thought an insect had flown into their eyes or something similar. While muttering curses and rubbing their eyes they were blissfully unaware of the fact that somewhere in the Malfoy Manor a shallow silver bowl with the same liquid would start to glow and swirl and from then on act as a Pensieve of some sort, only that it showed what currently happened instead of memories.  
Currently, three friends of the family that were very highly paid and therefore _very_ good friends were watching those three officials during their waking hours. That way Lucius, Draco and Narcissa had always known just what line of action would benefit them the most, had known when their house would be searched for dark artefacts and how to avoid suspicion.

That, together with a milder version of a love potion - which made the three Aurors along with their three watchdogs sympathize with the Malfoy family and ignore most of the evidence during their investigations - would make sure that Lucius Malfoy would never see the inside of a prison cell again and had played an important role in the acquittal of Draco and Narcissa.

Well, maybe the amount of Galleons changing hands right before the trials had something to do with that, too.

"It is a sad day when a Malfoy has need of a Half-Blood to safe him." Cygnus smirked as one of Severus' eyebrows rose dangerously. "But if my lineage has succumbed to that level of uselessness, I can think of no one I'd rather have at their side."

Severus bowed his head in thanks, accepting the compliment for what it was. Really, he did like that portrait.

At that moment Lucius entered the smaller parlour. "Severus! Are you already reacquainting yourself with Cygnus? I swear I always wondered when he would persuade my father to blood-adopt you."

"You know he would never have done that." Severus said dismissively. And indeed it would have been frowned upon by many a dark pureblood family and might have done much damage to the Malfoy name if Abraxas had adopted him; something no Malfoy would risk willingly.

"Anyway," Severus continued as his friend finally came to stand in front of him and he clasped his hand in greeting "where is my godson?"

"Actually, he's not here." Lucius suppressed a smirk. Severus would not like this…  
"You were not at the engagement party." He said conversationally as he sat down in one of the heavily upholstered arm chairs, intent on drawing out his fun as much as possible.

"Of course I wasn't. I told Draco I wouldn't be there. If I had been, I'm sure the evening would have ended with some corpses, and not mine!" He hated such gatherings where everyone present would sneer at him as if he were some stray that Lucius had graciously decided to take home and shelter. The last time he had nearly hexed Druella Rosier, Narcissa's mother, into oblivion.

"I know, and Draco understands. But really, it is a pity you weren't there, _this time_."

Severus cocked an eyebrow as he observed his friend and took a seat himself. What could have happened to make Lucius that excited? And the man was; probably only someone who knew him closely would be able to see it, but the Malfoy patriarch literally burst with the thrill over these news, whatever they were. He stole a quick glance at Cygnus but the portrait only shook his head and smirked back.

"Lucius, put your poor guest out of his misery; you know potion masters use all the patience they have on their potions, leaving nothing for ill-mannered brats."

Affronted, Lucius looked at the painting of his ancestor. "I knew I should have burned you years ago."

Cygnus chuckled lowly, not in the least bit troubled. "You would have, had you been able to remove the protective potions that were mixed into the paints of my painting." He drawled.

"You tried to do what!?" Severus exclaimed, incensed that his friend had tried to get rid of something he treasured that much. "Don't you dare do anything to that painting, Lucius! I warn you!"

The blonde rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I tried to give him to you, but somehow the portrait can't be removed from the House and whenever I have the House Elves put it away in a storeroom, he just visits the other portraits in the gallery. I didn't know what to do with him!"

"You can't put a Malfoy aside like that, boy! As a Malfoy you should know that!" Cygnus snarled.

"Anyway!" Severus called out, drawing the attention to himself again. "I'll visit more often, Sir, and if Lucius is not averse to the idea, we could brew together in the dungeons again…"

"I'm fine with that" Lucius drawled "It should keep the nuisance occupied…"

"Show more respect to your elders, you…"

"PLEASE! Will the two of you stop that and just tell me what happened?" Severus cried out, his furious gaze flickering from one Malfoy to the other.

"Ah, yes…" Cygnus started before Lucius could, causing the actually physically present man to curl his lips in indignation. "The Potter line brought forth the first Vykélari in over two centuries."

"Really? Harry Potter?" Severus drawled, his eyes narrowing dangerously but he was actually a little bit disappointed. That was Lucius' grand surprise? "Just one reason more for the boy to mistake himself for someone special. And why by Morgaine did you think this would interest me?"

"Oh, nothing" Lucius waved his hand dismissively in a poor imitation of nonchalance. "He is just the first submissive in over two centuries and currently residing in Italy with Blaise and Draco as his guides during such a difficult and trying experience." He rolled around the words in his mouth with obvious relish as if they were some rare delicacy.

Severus obviously didn't think so as he gaped at his friend, aghast. "What? Lucius, are you mad?"  
Blaise, Draco and Potter alone in Italy? The three young men would probably kill each other! Then he stumbled in his thoughts. Submissive?

Unperturbed by his startled expression, the portrait continued. "Oh, hush, Prince! The young one will be quite an addition to our noble house. He'll…"

Quickly, Severus leaped up, furious anger written all over his face. "You want them to bond? Now I _know_ you are insane! He is a reckless, stubborn, utterly dim-witted rule breaker whose fame got to his head! Damn it, Lucius, all of his achievements originated in sheer luck and the willingness of others to sacrifice themselves for him! I don't want that sacrifice to be Draco one day!"

"Severus, _Draco_ will be the one to control him! As the dominants, Draco and Blaise will keep him under their thumb." Lucius muttered reassuringly, trying to assuage his friend's rage.

"He cannot be controlled!" The black haired man growled, starting to pace the room.  
"Dumbledore tried to control him and failed, the ministry tried to control him and they failed spectacularly!"

Then, quite suddenly Severus spun around, his robes billowing behind him. "What did Blaise and Draco say to this? Did they agree?"

Cautiously, Lucius observed his friend. Of course he had known that Severus wouldn't react well to the news but he hadn't thought it would be quite this bad.

"Why do you hate the boy so, Severus?" he wondered uncomprehendingly. "Isn't it a bit hypocritical seeing as you fought for his side, abandoned our cause, our family?"  
And really, he hadn't quite forgiven him for that, though he was inclined to condone it most of the time, seeing how Severus had helped his son during the war and how he had assisted their whole family immediately and without hesitation during the difficult time of the trials.

Severus only huffed in indignation. "Isn't it hypocritical to berate me for betraying the Dark Lord when you were the only Malfoy loyal to him in the end? And not even you fought during that last battle."

Silence hit the room, so oppressive that not even Cygnus in his portrait dared to take an inanimate breath. Then one corner of Severus' mouth twitched treacherously and Lucius started to grin a moment later and shook his head.  
"You're right, old friend." He chuckled dryly.

"I don't hate him per se." Severus murmured tiredly, rubbing over his face with one hand as he once again took his seat "I hate how inconsiderate he tends to be, I abhor how ignorant he is and how much like his father. I hate that everyone worships him just because Lily gave her life for him. He did nothing, Lucius. It was her! Dumbledore hinted at it, though of course he never directly said it. _She_ was the one to vanquish the Dark Lord; it was her sacrifice that did it, no action of Potter's. But for what? For a small brat of that git…" Severus shook his head a little bit in disgust.  
"In his first year he supposedly defeated him once again, but it was her protection that did the deed. In his second year, he would have died if not for Dumbledore's phoenix saving his sorry ass. In his fourth year, it was once again only luck that saved him, the fortunate circumstance that his and the Dark Lord's wand were brothers and he owes his escape to the spectres of Lily and the others the dark lord had killed. In his fifth year, he got his godfather killed and endangered his friends and many members of that ridiculous Order of the Phoenix because of his stupidity and rashness. And later he almost killed Draco, for Merlin's sake!"

Weakly, Severus waved his hand in an indefinite gesture.   
"The list goes on and on." He whispered. "And I don't want Draco or Blaise to be drawn into that maelstrom of destruction that is Potter's life."

"All very good reasons. But why follow him then?" Cygnus asked from the frame, his face carefully blank as he observed his beloved student. Severus only stared ahead.

"I didn't follow him. I never did. I tried to keep him alive, because he was Lilly's; but that is all I owed her. I only switched sides to begin with because I was trying to keep her safe and once I had done that, I couldn't go back, I was already a traitor to the Dark Lord's cause."  
Severus looked up, determinedly countering Lucius' hard stare. "I followed Dumbledore, because he was the only one who could protect me from both Voldemort and the ministry."

Lucius nodded. He would have liked to say that he would have kept his friend safe. But really, he didn't know if he would have been able to. Once he had fallen from grace he hadn't even been able to protect his own son from the Dark Lord's wrath. Severus had been the one to do that.

"But what you have to understand, Severus, is that a Submissive is a source of power that may not ever fall into the hands of another family. Not if there is only this one. No, hear me out!" Lucius bid, lifting one of his hands to silence the potions master.

"During his transformation his magical core expanded. It is like a solid sphere, Severus, and now the content has been used to form the surface of a larger sphere, a hollow one, leaving him with practically no magic to use for now. Once he has had enough time to rest and fill it up again, though, he will be an incredibly powerful wizard! And once he has mated, some of this power will be used to form and feed a unique bond to his mates that will allow them to access and use that magic, shifting it from one to the other at will. Power-wise they will be stronger than even the Dark Lord and Grindlewald together, Severus! That is why dark and light lords both have always tried to kill off mated submissives, using whatever they could think of: poison, traps, anything. Even Vykélari dominants tended to murder submissives who were either unwilling to mate or already mated. That is why they became extinct, Severus, for ten long generations!"

Thoughtfully Severus stared at the blond man. "You just don't want him mated to someone outside your family and have to deal with a new, powerful enemy."

Lucius nodded gravely, his eyes blazing as he answered "I'd rather see him dead."

"And then don't forget the prestige and influence the Malfoys would gain" Cygnus spoke up, looking enthralled by the possibilities and a little bit wistful at not being alive to actually witness everything. "Mordred, Prince, with the help of the young submissive and his betrothed and some good advisors at his side…" at that point he winked at Lucius and Severus "… our Draco could literally overrun the ministry!"

Severus shook his head. "And this is where you underestimate Potter. He won't allow himself to be used thusly. Damn Gryffindor attitude."

"We'll see, Severus, we'll see. For now we have to help Draco and Blaise _woo_ The Submissive, but I really can't find any useful information on the subject in the whole library…"

"Lucius" Cygnus drawled "You are a bitter disappointment. You have a gallery of portraits of your ancestors. One Vykélari after the other. And you are trying to find their diaries instead of asking them?"

At least Lucius had the decency to look decently chagrined.

* * *

  
Hermione would never have thought that she'd ever have to return to the very place that she had been tortured in by Bellatrix Lestrange. Nevertheless, she now stood here in front of the dark building, willingly waiting for someone to come and allow them entrance. It would probably be a House Elf. But she couldn't bring herself to care right now.

"I hate this house." She whispered to no one in particular and felt Ron take her hand, squeezing it reassuringly for a moment.

"You don't have to do this, 'Mione." Ron said quietly. "No one expects it of you."

"I know." Hermione smiled weakly at the redhead. "But it's Harry."  
And really, that would have been reason enough; that no one else seemed to be willing to help them, was just another.

When they had rushed to the spell damage floor in St. Mungo's after Harry had fallen unconscious, the healers had taken Harry's still form and carried him away and they hadn't been allowed to follow.   
Quite upset and angry, Hermione bit her lips as she remembered the healer who had only stayed long enough to recite a speech that sounded suspiciously memorized about how they would find out what had happened to Harry and help him, before rushing off.  
From then on they hadn't been told anything at all but the healers and Mediwizards who rushed past them seemed to get more and more agitated with the hour. Hermione had been so busy trying to console Ginny that she hadn't noticed the grave expressions they wore, but in retrospect, she should have realised that it hadn't been looking too good for her friend.

When Malfoy and Zabini had arrived, all of them had been too tired, too frustrated to ask many questions, but their presence, too, should have been suspicious: after all they hadn't looked at all as if they were in need of the healers on the spell damage floor and they had been welcomed as if consulted by the healers themselves.

And then the very same healer who was responsible for Harry had lead them away into the very same direction they had taken their friend.  
In hindsight it was so obvious! They should have known something weird was going on, should have protested more fiercely when they were sent home, threatened with the hospital's security shouldn't they comply.

Of course they had returned early in the morning the next day but only after hours of nagging had one of the Mediwizards taken pity on them and had told them that Harry James Potter was no longer within the wards of St. Mungo's.

It had been a second full of nothingness: no sound, no feeling, nothing. Hermione would even have sworn that her heart hadn't beaten either.

Then it had gone downhill from there: The Weasley men had gone berserk, Ginny and Molly had wept and ranted and Hermione had remembered.  
Remembered Malfoy.

It had taken some time until Fred, George and Ron had stopped harassing the hospital staff for information and she had managed to get them to the Auror office.

But the Aurors hadn't helped them either: the head of the Auror department himself, a bulky man with the name Henderson, had told them that they had already been contacted by the Hospital and by the one who was currently caring for Harry Potter. With many words he assured them that the Chosen One was well and safe but he made it clear that his location was to remain secret.  
Nothing they did or threatened him with had changed his mind on that decision and in the end they had had no choice but to leave and apparate to Malfoy Manor in the vague hope of finding Harry there.

It had seemed to be a good idea at the time they had apparated, too.

Now, though, Hermione was not so sure.

Apprehensively she gazed over to her companions who looked as stubborn and determined as ever. Molly kept clenching and unclenching her fists repeatedly and the twins gripped their wands so tightly that their knuckles were white. Ginny's eyes still glistened with tears, but she seemed angry now, determined to bring down whatever had taken her ex- and future-boyfriend away from her.  
Ron was still watching her with silent concern, rubbing her hand soothingly and Arthur … Arthur looked like a rock, tall and calm and unmoveable as he gazed steadily at each of them.

"Hold yourselves back!" He said. "We have no right to be here since the Auror department told us in no unclear terms to back off. And please, let me do the talking."

They all nodded, only nodded. Hermione didn't think the others really felt like talking, God knew, she didn't.  
But she followed Arthur stubbornly as he made the rest of the way over to the Manor on that path of stones that were mocking them with their innocent whiteness. Together they climbed the steps to the front door and Arthur took hold of the doorknocker, pounding it thrice against the metal plate on the door.

For long moments, nothing happened. Then, the large door slid open, revealing a small House Elf with huge, glowing eyes that seemed to bulge from their sockets. She wore a white, clean pillowcase that looked to be of a much finer cloth than House Elves usually wore and a curtain cord that was bound around her waist gave the thing actually something like a decent shape.  
"Yes?" She cheeped after looking them over in a disparaging way that she must have copied from her mistress.

"We would like to speak to your master." Arthur said only a little bit tensely.

"Master Malfoy is telling Valett he is not seeing guests tonight. Valett is sorry. You be leaving a message for Master Malfoy and Valett will be sure to deliver it."  
That was unacceptable! Ginny stepped forward, intending to give the Elf a piece of her mind and force it to get her master if necessary, but she was interrupted by a soft female voice that came from behind the Elf.

"It is fine, Valett."  
The woman drawled and the door opened a little bit more to reveal the tall, proud figure of Narcissa Malfoy, wearing an elegant long dress of dark, almost black silk.  
"I was expecting these guests." She smirked as she looked at them from between hooded lashes.

"Then you know why we came." Molly hissed, furious beyond reason that this woman could stand there so carefree and serene and admit so freely to having kidnapped their Harry, because really, why else would she expect them?

"Of course I do. I presume you went to the Aurors?"

"Where is Harry?" Arthur asked directly but calmly, staring at her challengingly.

"He is safe, Mr Weasley, as Mr Henderson undoubtedly told you. But for his safety it is also imperative that no one learns of his current location." Narcissa smiled sweetly at them, but so obviously feigned, it was sickening.

"We are Harry's family!" One of the twins seethed "We would never do anything to endanger him! Stop playing around and tell us where he is!"

"Fred!" Arthur hissed, grabbing his son's shoulder tightly to restrain him. God, everything depended on the goodwill of the woman in front of them. They could do nothing to help if she didn't tell them where Harry was.  
"Mrs Malfoy," he said imploringly "please tell us where he is! The last thing he said right before collapsing was 'something is taking my magic'! We only need to know what happened and that he is fine. Where is he?"

The muscles in Narcissa's jaw tightened, but she didn't budge "I can't…"

"If you won't tell us, Mrs Malfoy," Hermione spoke up, her voice dangerously pleasant "I'm sure that we can find a reporter who would be more than delighted to write about the curious circumstances under which the Saviour of the Wizarding World disappeared."

Narcissa huffed, but then she smirked a little bit and cocked her head. "Well then, I might as well explain. Valett, wine in the arbour."  
And with that she stepped forward, gathering her dress. "It is such a beautiful night, let us speak in the garden." But from the way she pulled the front door to the Manor close behind her, it was obvious that she merely didn't wish Blood Traitors to pollute her home.

Only half an hour later the Weasley family left, shocked to the core: Harry was a Vykélari, a submissive Vykélari.  
Of course, the redheads knew about them. Had heard of them. And Arthur at least knew the laws: a dominant was allowed to abduct a submissive he intended to mate and the location was allowed to be hidden from anyone, even the authorities, because Vykélari were so rare and usually a fight for the favour of a submissive was a fight to the death. Not to mention that the submissive himself would be in danger of being killed by rejected suitors.

That Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini had kidnapped Harry could only mean that they intended to mate him. And there was nothing either Hermione or one of the Weasleys could do about it.  



	6. Lanai Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the kudos! And thank you, adafrog and lex_is_hopefully_not_grounded_for_long, for commenting!

Disoriented and still drowsy with sleep, Harry let his eyes flutter open and blinked against the bright sunlight falling directly on his face. With a tormented groan he squeezed them shut again and turned his head away from the cruel light into the soft cushion cradling his head, searching the darkness that would allow him a little bit more sleep. God, he felt so knackered…

It didn't work though, and soon Harry blinked his eyes open again to a bright-lit room, stretching his sore muscles out on the wonderfully soft bed that just seemed to cradle his body as if suffused with cushioning charms. It soothed his aching muscles well enough and soon he slid back into sleepiness, feeling as comfortable, warm and relaxed as the soreness in his body would allow him to; too relaxed and too drowsy to spend time on pondering why there was a beautifully painted fresco adorning the ceiling above his head.  
It was framed by dark, richly carved wood, looking like an oval window that opened to the sky outside, showing a sea of blue, streaked with white, drifting cotton-wool clouds and partly veiled by the large leaves of vine grapes that were twined around a wooden trellis framing the view of the painted window. Ripe, black grapes hung heavily from the vines, begging to be plucked and songbirds sat amidst the leaves and flew over the sky.  
Harry would have probably found it rather tacky under normal conditions, but the pale coloured fresco was enchanted like the portraits Harry had seen so often, and for some moments his drowsy mind was content to watch the birds flutter from one vine stock to the other, coming to sit right above the grapes, picking at them now and then.

But slowly it registered with him what exactly he was _not_ seeing and that was the white, unadorned ceiling in his room at his aunt's and uncle's, or the dark dreariness at the Black Manor or even the piles of packages in Fred and George's room at the Burrow he had slept in lately…

And with that realisation the memories came crashing down on him like an avalanche. Panic and white-hot agony searing through his veins. The fear of losing his magic, of being blind and deaf, the numbness.

Feeling dead.

Harry sat up, unable to not run from the memory of that sensation and he scrambled out of the bed, tried to, but his damn new appendages crushed painfully into the bedposts that were rather tall, even though they did not end in the ceiling of a canopy bed. He cried out and flinched once again as the sound came out as a full-blown, high-pitched eagle screech.  
Agitatedly his wings fluttered and they folded around him in a protective barrier of dark greens, making him stumble in his attempts to get out of the king size bed and he fell forwards, landing on the hard stone floor with a sudden, dull thud and a surprised outcry.

For long moments he just laid there unmoving, staring wide-eyed at the gleaming, soft feathers that cocooned his huddled form; feathers of emerald and bottle-green and fresh young spring-green, suffused by sunlight, and he tried to shake off the remembered dread and pain that made his shoulders shake with the force of it all.

He breathed, concentrated on that, and slowly the flood of memories abated, gentled. He remembered soothing magic, calming touches, cool explanations, even if two Slytherins had been the bearers. But that didn't matter so much as the fact that his transformation was over and that he was able to see and feel and listen again.

Minutes passed, Harry didn't know how many, while he kept on staring at that silky green texture that taunted him with the knowledge that he was not human any more. He was a creature.  
But that was okay; if Malfoy could live with it, it couldn't be too hard a change to adapt to. He just needed to find out what this bloody inheritance entailed!

Licking over his lips, Harry reached out with one shivering hand, captivated by the clarity with which he could make out the delicate texture of each shiny feather, until his overtaxed mind was distracted by the fact that all five of his fingers ended in dark greyish, almost one and a half inch long talons that were slightly curved towards his palm and ended in dangerously sharp tips.

More clearly than he cared to, Harry remembered how he had scratched himself with those and how … how Malfoy had touched him.

Harry closed his eyes as he felt the dizzying embarrassment of that specific memory rush to his cheeks and huddled closer into the warm comfort of his feathers, feeling them brush softly against his bare torso. How could he have let it happen? How could he have been so helpless? Letting two Slytherins care for him, hold him, direct his magic!

'If you tell Ron, you'll never live this down.' Harry chuckled dryly and that thought helped, gave him something to focus on aside from the insanity of his current situation. He had to get back to the Burrow, to his friends, to Ginny… and he would!

Malfoy had said he had come into some inheritance or another, that he was a Vykeli or something. But he had also said that Harry would be able to transform back again, given time and rest. So the weird changes of his body could wait, what had happened in the hospital could wait.  
What could not wait was the fact that Harry had been kidnapped. And though he probably knew who it was, he couldn't be sure. Someone else could have taken advantage of his weakened state and helplessness; after all it was not as if he had only the one enemy... He needed to find out where he was, who had brought him here and how the hell to get home again.

Carefully he pushed at the soft, downy feathers of his wings, forcing them to open and give his body free, and to his surprise, they fluttered a little bit before pulling themselves right into the skin of his back. For a moment, it felt as if something warm pressed gently but insistently against the places where his wings had sprouted from his torso and then that, too, was gone, leaving him feeling a little bit exhausted, but endlessly relieved.  
Without those things, he definitely felt better, or at least more familiar, more like himself and he was able to relax a little bit; it seemed that Malfoy and Zabini had not lied to him: he could change back.  
He decided to take that as a good sign.

Standing up, Harry quickly scanned his surroundings but it seemed that at least he was alone in the ridiculously large room. How much time did one have to spend in a bedroom to require so much space anyway? And wide, pillar-framed archways to the right and opposite of the king size bed seemed to lead to even more rooms. What lay behind them, however, was veiled by long, flowing curtains and that made Harry quite nervous. He couldn't be sure that he was alone…  
Intently he listened for some moments but there was nothing aside from a distant rushing that spoke of a large body of water close by.

He inched towards the wide windows through which sun flooded the room, careful to keep low and not let himself be seen from outside as he came to stand beside one of the windows, peeking out from behind the light, flowing curtains that hang to both sides of it.

Harry had to admit that it was a breath taking view that unfurled before him: beneath the window a large, beautiful garden spread in five terraces over a shallow acclivity towards the deep blue sea, the smallest of them being a dozen meters wide at least, the largest was the nethermost one that seemed to be a park in and of itself. It vaguely reminded Harry of a castle's pleasure ground, just with more exotic plants and not as strictly geometric in the shape of the beds and greens.  
Throughout the different terraces, several patios were nestled in between rocks and exotic plants, belted with flat stonewalls, shadowed by trees of various kinds that Harry had never even seen before - and he doubted seriously that any muggle had, either.

The nearest of these patios was on the first terrace: a table with a complex tessellation of blues and greens was being set up by House Elves with bowls of fruit, carafes of some golden liquid and three place settings.  
Right next to it, an artificial, probably magical well fed a small, stone-edged rivulet running downwards to the second terrace and into an impressively large pool, the water glittering in the sunlight so brightly that it almost blinded him. From there the little stream fled towards the sea, building small ponds where the water cascaded from one terrace to the other.

And there were colours; so many immeasurable hues and values, so many unexpected patterns on the leaves and petals of these plants and he was vaguely aware that he really shouldn't be seeing so many details from so far a distance…

It was a beautiful view, but it didn't help him decipher what he needed to know, aside from the fact that he obviously was not anywhere near the British Islands anymore. Whoever had taken him had enough influence to get a portkey to wherever he was now…

"Enjoying the view once again, Potter?"

Harry whipped around at hearing that lilting, teasing drawl and he snarled, knowing that whatever he said now would be unintelligible anyway. There right in front of the curtain veiled archway opposite of the king size bed stood Malfoy and Zabini, as poised and arrogant as ever but somehow stronger and more truly self-assured than ever before, too. Confident enough to answer Harry's defensive stance with barely concealed amusement as they stepped into the room.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Potter; does this seem as if we tried to harm you in any way?" Malfoy asked with his tell-tale smirk, pointing to the room's luxurious interior with an indefinite sweeping gesture that seemed to include everything and nothing at once, as if he wanted Harry to read into it whatever would be most beneficial for him.

Harry raised his chin defiantly but did not lower his guard any; in his humble opinion, he had every right to any bout of undue paranoia he felt like having, especially after their shared enmity during their schooldays and the war combined with their molestation of his person during the past night.  
But as he glanced at his surroundings once more, taking in the elegant, finely lathed furnishings of dark wood and flowing sand-coloured fabric, he had to admit that Malfoy was right: these were not the rooms of a prisoner.

He immediately turned his head back towards the two Slytherins though, who were still advancing on him and slowly Harry pressed himself against the room's outer wall just to get a little bit further away from them, and bared his teeth in a silent warning.  
"Why so hostile, Potter?" The darker of the two murmured, his low voice like a caress. "And so silent. Still unable to speak?"

Harry really considered not answering: having helped him during the transformation and keeping from openly antagonizing him didn't give them the right to kidnap him! But he really needed to find out how to change back, he had done it only by chance with his wings after all; and furthermore something about the way Zabini was looking at him was utterly distracting … like a starved vampire, maybe.

"You retracted those gorgeous wings and couldn't change back your voice box?" Malfoy raised an eyebrow at Harry, his lips curled into a sneer. "Mordred, Potter, your priorities!"

Zabini reached over towards the blonde, a small gesture since they stood so close to each other, his hand brushing against the other's lower arm for but a moment. Harry could see Malfoy's lips tightening scarcely perceptibly before his expression relaxed, softened almost and he continued with a milder tone of voice.  
"Just concentrate on your speech, on what you want to say and how to voice it; how it might feel to voice it. Your magic learned and memorized the change yesterday night; you don't need to direct it in any way. But do not overdo it: you are still magically exhausted and transformations are tiring after all."

Harry stared, he knew he did, but he really couldn't stop himself. Draco Malfoy, the top dog of Slytherin House being … if not reproved then at least reminded to act polite by another Slytherin. It was … grotesque. But Harry remembered the way Zabini had threatened him last night when he had bitten the blonde and his suspicion that their relationship was somewhat deeper than that of the Ice Prince to one of his cronies. It seemed he was more than right.

Still a little bit stunned he followed Malfoy's advice and thought of the sound of his voice as he heard it, the small vibrations that one felt during speaking but only when one concentrated on them. Something shifted in his throat. Not painfully, just oddly and he reached up, feeling the tendons and the hard knob that was his voice box.

"We'll have a late noon meal in the garden." Zabini said as he stepped past Harry towards the large window he had been looking out from. Then he turned suddenly, his eyes glinting as they travelled from the thin pyjama bottoms that the Gryffindor wore to his bare chest. For a short moment he locked eyes with Malfoy, and then he smirked back at Harry.  
"You might want to dress, but if you don't like what we laid out for you earlier," and without taking his eyes off Harry, he gestured towards the end of the large king-size bed with the now rumpled summer coat. Right at its foot stood an elegantly curved foot bench made of a dark wood, with a velvety, sand-coloured upholstering; and on it was a neat pile of black and blue clothing.  
"…you are welcome to further show off those markings of yours."

"Markings?" Harry exclaimed, looking down at his body. Indeed, there were dark emerald lines travelling down the sides of his ribcage in a swirling pattern of curves and curls, some thicker, some thinner. They ran over his waist along his hipbones and vanished under the waistband of the black pyjama bottoms.  
'Oh, Merlin, please don't tell me they disrobed me…'

His eyes must have widened comically because both of the Slytherins started to chuckle at him; well, Zabini did. Malfoy's answer was more along the lines of a derisive snort.

"Shut up!" Harry growled, feeling uncomfortably naked all of a sudden. Self-consciously he drew his arms around his chest and glared fiercely at the other two men. Trust Slytherins to find something to ridicule when there were much more pressing matters at hand. And there were so many …  
"Where am I?" He asked the first question that sprung to his mind and it seemed to trigger more and more and like an avalanche they gained in force and anger as they came rushing from his lips.  
"Why have you brought me here? And what the hell happened? Why do I have fucking wings and claws and I don't know what else? Why were you there? Huh? In that room, why were you there? And why the hell did you bloody bastards fucking kidnap me?"

Angrily Harry glared at the two stunned Slytherins.  
"Never mind!" he snarled as they stayed silent; he didn't really care much for what they had to say anyways. "Give me back my wand and my clothes and then take me back to … to London!"

"I liked him better when he was unable to talk…" Malfoy sighed almost wistfully.

"Potter - Harry." Zabini said, his lilting voice calm and low. "Please dress and join us in the garden. We will explain everything then."

"My wand first!" Harry ground out. Really he didn't want to stay defenceless a minute longer than necessary, especially in the company of someone who had been the bane of his existence throughout his days at Hogwarts.

"We don't have it." Malfoy replied with a slight frown. "You didn't have it with you when you were brought to St. Mungo's."

"You took me from there?"

"Of course."

"And the Weasley's?" Harry asked, knowing that they must have been the ones to bring him to the wizard hospital. He couldn't for one moment believe that they had just allowed the two Slytherins to just levitate him out like a trunk.

Malfoy cocked his head, his gaze boring into Harry. "They are not related to you."

Harry waited, but the unnerving bastard didn't elaborate further and after a few moments of taut silence, he ground his teeth and snapped "Duh! Of course they aren't! What the fuck do you mean, Malfoy?"

The git only stared at him blankly for a little while; then he sighed dramatically as if Harry made him live through the epitome of martyrdom and recited with exaggerated patience. "Only relatives are allowed close to a patient without the patient's express permission which you were unable to give at the time. I know that many healers before were willing to bend the rules a little bit for their ever so noble 'Chosen One', but Healer Cowan was not... he seemed a little bit uptight if you ask me, and I am certain that my father will be having a nice little chat with him soon concerning his enthusiasm for his work. And bondage." He added as an afterthought but waved the comment away with a beatific smile.

"They don't know what happened?" Harry exclaimed and the thought made him shiver. Not only would his surrogate family worry endlessly over him, frantically - they were a little bit overprotective lately what with the end of the war and Voldemort's vengeful supporters still scattered over Britain and bloodthirsty reporters on his heels - but more importantly no one _knew_ where he was. He was at the mercy of his captors and no one might ever find out what happened to him. Oh, he knew his friends would search for him and if anyone would be able to find him, then it was Hermione and Ron, but what if they came too late … too late to stop whatever Malfoy and Zabini wanted to do with him? _To him_?

"My mother will probably have told them, I don't imagine your little sidekicks will be happy to find out that you're no longer within the wards of St. Mungo's, but as they saw me and Blaise there, they will know whom to ask."

"And why would she tell them?" Harry sneered, because he felt so damn out of his element.

"Because there is no reason not to: we did nothing illegal by bringing you here." Blaise said in that slight, patiently indulgent tone of voice with which one would answer the questions of a small child. It made Harry's blood boil.

"You kidnapped me!" He all but shouted and took an aggressive step forward before stopping himself. God, how he wanted to smash that bastard's face in, but he didn't have a wand and they did and he suffered from magical exhaustion whereas they looked as well rested as one could possibly get. Therefore, he restrained himself, balling his hands into fists and concentrated on the distractingly painful feeling of his nails cutting into his palms.

"Not according to Vykélari laws; no we didn't." Malfoy said, all humour vanished from his face and voice and his expression was so hard and grave that Harry had to swallow, suddenly unsure. What if it was true? What if they really had the right to kidnap him?

His head was still reeling from the implication of that thought when Zabini stepped forward and laid his right hand on Malfoy's shoulder, squeezing slightly. "Listen, Potter, you really need to know about your inheritance, about the laws of our kind. Laws that overrule the laws of the ministry whenever in conflict. Moreover, you need to learn how to control your abilities and how to curb your magic. We can show you how."

Harry shook his head. "Why would I trust you?"

"We didn't harm you despite of having the chance multiple times now, and I owe you a life debt. Why would we harm you now?" Malfoy asked in turn, his head cocked to one side and his face blazing in a flash of sunlight that made his eyes pale so much that Harry thought he might have been looking at a demon who had no iris but only two contracted little points of deepest black that seemed to pierce him right through.

Without really wanting to, Harry found himself complying reluctantly. But really, he didn't have much of a choice: without a wand he was pretty much at Malfoy's and Zabini's mercy and he should probably be more affable at least until he found a way to escape.

* * *

  
Minutes later the two Slytherins led the way down a wide, elegantly curved staircase, along a short sand-coloured corridor and into the garden. Harry trailed behind them thoughtfully as he considered the tall figures before him.

In retrospect, they didn't seem much different from when he had seen them at Malfoy's trial not so long ago; but he hadn't really taken note of their appearance then. Now, in the middle of the sunlit, beautiful garden with no other people around them, no task like the awkward returning of a wand to distract him, Harry couldn't help but notice how different they looked from when all three of them had still been at Hogwarts.  
They were no longer the irritating, easy-to-rile schoolboys he had known, Harry thought as he studied them, even though they were still irritating enough, or maybe even more so now that he was at their mercy and had to take them seriously for once.

They were both elegantly dressed and Harry would have thought that they had been out or were about to depart to some fancy restaurant or something, but the two snobbish Slytherins probably thought their attire to be 'casual'.  
Malfoy wore jet-black trousers and a dark blue-grey, tapered vest above a white, simple but elegant shirt. It might have been silk or something else, Harry really couldn't tell; it looked as if Harry would have found the price too ridiculous to pay for a bit of clothing, though. Not that it didn't look stunning on Malfoy's pale, lean muscled form, it really did: tall and proud he projected an aura of confidence and deadly grace like – like someone you really didn't want to mess with.

Zabini, on the other hand, was the image of darkness, seductive taboo, with his dark tan, and the black, tight-fitting dress shirt and charcoal jeans that hugged his muscular form in such a way they just had to have been tailored. He had left the first buttons of his shirt open and, all in all, he looked striking with the simplicity and elegance of his outfit. And from the look on his face, he knew it, too.

That was when he noticed that the Slytherins had both turned and regarded him with almost identical smirks and Harry flushed. God, when had Zabini and Malfoy started to be able to make Harry lose himself in his thoughts? The war should have taught him better, _had_ taught him better than that in fact.

"Sorry. Sorry, I just…" Harry muttered and then broke off with a shrug. There was no way that he would admit to having ogled them…

But then Malfoy took his hand and he must have used a small touch of his magic that made Harry's skin tingle pleasantly where the blonde's fingers stroked over the back of his hand, invigorating in a way that made his heart beat faster. As he looked up, Malfoy gave him a little half-smile, an honest smile, not those sneers and smirks he usually wore and Harry found himself staring again. He didn't really notice as the blonde led him towards the little patio he had seen earlier from the window in his room, too distracted by the surprisingly warm fingers touching his own so gently. He _did_ notice when Zabini pulled out the chair for him and he was urged to sit. God had he ever felt so flustered?

"Uhm…" Harry started, scrambling for something to say even before his hosts had taken their seats (and when the hell had they transformed from enemies and kidnappers to hosts?).  
Feeling extremely uncomfortable again, Harry cleared his throat. "So, where are we?"

Zabini chuckled warmly as he sat down to Harry's right. "In Lanai Manor. Well, my mother calls it Zabini Manor since I inherited it after my father's death, but the locals still call it Lanai Manor."

"That doesn't mean anything to me…" Harry admitted absent-mindedly with a slight frown, watching as Malfoy poured him a glass of that golden liquid.  
"And what is that?" He asked suspiciously.

"Hesperides' Nectar. It is made of a variety of apples that my father's family cultivates. A rather expensive treat since the trees themselves need magic to grow, which the farmers have to infuse them with - there are just so few places nowadays with natural magic and the ones that exist are protected and can't be used for farming." Zabini explained, watching Harry intently.  
"But I digress: we are at the Costa Tirrenica in Italy."

"A-huh." Harry murmured though he really had no idea where that was; he had never been very good at geography. For a moment, he busied himself by watching the liquid swirl around in his glass like molten gold. That was better than trying to hold the Slytherins' weird gazes; those were starting to really freak him out…

"So, what am I now? And what did you mean when you said you had the right to bring me here without my consent?" he tried to keep his voice calm, he really did, but it sounded tense and taut even to him.

For a moment silence spread over the small table, and Harry looked up to see the two Slytherins sharing a glance; as if they were holding a quiet conversation.

"Have some fruit salad, Potter, you must be hungry." Malfoy said at last as he turned to him once again, completely ignoring Harry's question, and with a roguish smile he started piling the mixture of fruits on the crystalline dessert plate of his guest.  
Harry merely gaped at him open-mouthed: they had promised to explain! Nevertheless, the git continued completely unperturbed.

"I'm afraid that your stomach will be easily upset for one or two days with animal products, thanks to your new features combined with some traces of magical exhaustion."

"Malfoy…" The feathers in Harry's hair raised themselves warningly as he growled at the blonde, making the Gryffindor look as if he wore a somewhat chaotic crest of emeralds. Both Malfoy and Zabini exchanged an amused glance over the table at that, wondering if Harry was aware of how his new body mirrored his emotions… probably not.

"Hush, I'm getting to your questions, alright? No need to be so uncouth." Malfoy clicked his tongue disapprovingly and raised his chin, a slight frown creasing his pale brow. Harry wondered absent-mindedly if that was something he had copied from Narcissa Malfoy or from his father.

"I already explained some of it during your transformation yesterday night."

"Yeah, I remember. I'm a Vykeli now?" Harry asked, frowning at the weird silver fork in his hand that only had two long, thin and very sharp prongs.

"A Vykélari, Potter." Zabini corrected with a raised eyebrow. "And that is a fruit fork, it won't attack you."

Glaring at the dark skinned male, Harry stabbed a slice of peach and brought it to his mouth. He just wanted them to get to the fucking point, but it didn't seem as if they would anytime soon if Harry didn't at least start eating some of that crap. As his lips closed over the soft slice, however, he almost choked on the rich, sweet taste that exploded in his mouth, at the thick juice that swirled over his tongue.  
He had frozen in his movements for a few moments and only swallowed once he was sure he wouldn't get it into the wrong tube and he licked over his lips in search of that wonderful flavour before looking up again and flushing. Zabini was leaning back in his chair, watching him with an approving and oddly appreciative expression as if Harry had accomplished something he hadn't expected him to and as if that had raised his esteem in the tanned Italian's eyes. And then something flickered over his face, something blazing and burning but it was gone so fast that Harry was not even sure if he had imagined it.  
With much unease, he tore his gaze from the one and hefted it on the other, but that didn't help settle the fluttering in his stomach any as Malfoy refused to be the school-enemy Harry half-expected to see. Instead he sat upright in his chair, poised like a proper pureblood heir, Harry thought, but the sinews of his throat stood out as if he was fighting an inner, fierce battle and his eyes locked with Harry's and they seemed to devour him whole. If there was ever an albino-Nundu, Harry thought it had to look the way Malfoy was looking right now.

Feeling more than a little bit flustered and queasy, Harry averted his gaze and laid down his fork ostensibly carefully. "Uhm. The inheritance. Vykeli?"

"Vykélari, Potter."

"Yeah. Right. Uhm, why … why don't you … I mean I want, that is, I'd like to know why I became … that and why you … how I came to be here?"

He heard a sigh from his right, where Zabini sat and that seemed to break the sudden tension but he didn't look up nonetheless.

"Vykélari have been an integral part of the wizarding society for many centuries now, Potter. Especially here in Britain. Many purebloods once had the genes before the blood thinned or the genes were lost during one generation of only female descendants. You see, what distinguishes us from normal wizards are a set of additional genes located on the Y chromosome, that is why only males can become Vykélari.  
A wizard with those genes will not always transform however, although the genes themselves are dominant. That is because the transformation itself is very exhausting and a weak wizard would not survive the rebuilding of his magical core. The genes therefore only activate when the wizard has a chance to survive."

"So I was powerful enough to transform and therefore I did? Brilliant. Where does the gene come from in my family, do you know that?"

"Didn't you listen, Potter? It’s a Y-chromosomal succession. It's obviously from your pure-blooded paternal side, from the Potter line."

"Sorry." Harry exclaimed tartly. "But I didn't hear of anyone who was not … who became _that_ in my family."

Malfoy clicked his tongue once again, making Harry wonder how many times he could make the git do that during a certain time span. "It's been over 200 years since the last Potter fledged. Your ancestors were not powerful enough."

Harry cringed. "Could you not use that word, please? It makes me sound like an animal."  
And more to distract himself a little bit from the implications of that than anything else, Harry took the glass with the Hesperides' Nectar and sniffed carefully before taking a sip. Then he had to take another sip and another. It had a thick, velvety texture as it flowed over his tongue and it was cool and oh so very rich in its taste and sweet and utterly refreshing like cold spring water and it prickled gently on his tongue and throat as he swallowed. It was intoxicating and addicting and Harry had never tasted anything like it before…

Suddenly Zabini laughed and urged him to set the glass down with a gentle hand on his forearm. "Really, Potter. This is something to be enjoyed; something to be relished! Try drinking it slowly and savour the taste." But his eyes sparkled as Malfoy and he shared a grin, maybe remembering the first time they had tasted this specific beverage.

Then Malfoy shook his head slightly and continued. "Not an animal. I also dislike the term creature. We are human magical beings and therefore allowed to use wands just like wizards and have the same laws, well except those for mating, there are some additional rules and some liberties we may presume because of Vykélari mating habits. Not that they were enacted during the last 200 years…"

"Only mating laws?" Harry whispered, but his tone had some cutting quality to it and Malfoy fell silent and nodded, fixing him with an inquisitive stare.

"But you said that the special laws of Vykélari were why you brought me here and why … why it was legal that you did. So, since that has nothing to do with mating… it hasn't, has it?"  
'Oh, Merlin, please deny it!' Harry thought, looking from Zabini to Malfoy and back, feeling more horrified with every passing moment of silence. But his kidnappers only shared a carefully neutral glance before observing him once more. 'Oh god, it's true.'  
All those stares, those hungry glances, the molestation in St. Mungo's. It all made sense in that horrible way. "Oh Merlin!" he groaned.

"Potter … Harry," Zabini started, but Harry didn't want to listen to what he had to say. He didn't know what mating entailed exactly but he was pretty sure that he wouldn't like it; not with his school nemesis and another he didn't even know, anyway. And, damn it, they were male all three of them and … and he would not be part of a… of a _threesome_ ; especially not with those two!

He shot up from his chair, swaying a little bit as his battered cardiovascular system fought to keep up with him. But he managed to steady himself with the back of his chair and glared down at the two Slytherins.  
"No! This madness has gone on long enough: I want to go now! Get me a portkey to London, I want to go home!"

"No Harry. You can't go home. You won't." Malfoy said gravely as he, too, stood and his perfect composure made Harry bristle.  
"You cannot keep me here!"

"You have no idea what awaits you. There are about 180 Vykélari in Britain alone who are of the right age to seek someone to mate. You are the first submissive in over 200 years, Harry and by now they will know of your existence." He stepped closer to Harry, his shoulders squared and his face set in an expression of so inflexible determination and stubbornness that Harry involuntarily took a step back before he could stop himself. Never had he felt the few inches that separated them more than at that very moment.

"They will already be searching for you, Harry." Zabini said from his place at the table, never having stood. "We can protect you. We would never force a mating bond upon you. But if they find you, have no doubt that they will not care if you are willing or not."

They were mad! Utterly insane! He was no submissive whatever that meant, he couldn't be. And why the hell would other males try to mate with him anyway? Especially purebloods? There was no better way to end a bloodline than to marry someone who was unable to bear children. It didn't make sense that they would, and even if they were: he had escaped Voldemort's supporters, he would always escape.

"I can protect myself well enough, thank you very much! I don't need your help!" Harry seethed, his hands shaking badly at his side. "And you won't come anywhere near me; I'll go back to England with or without your help!" And then he would get Hermione to find out what all of this fucking _meant_!

He turned to leave just as he heard a clapping sound and then a cacophony of pops all around him, precursors of the almost two dozen house-elves that appeared out of the thin air. Curiously they stared at him, but their main focus was on Zabini.

"Mr Potter is not allowed to leave the grounds." He heard Zabini's imperious voice and stiffly and very slowly, he turned. Zabini had stood finally, bracing himself against the tessellated table with both hands, leaning forward menacingly. His hard gaze bore into Harry as he addressed his servants without even sparing them one glance. Next to him, Malfoy watched him with a carefully neutral expression but Harry thought he saw the corner of his mouth twitch suspiciously and that made him want to scream and rant and shout at them.  
But at the same time he felt as if he had been hit with a Body-Bind and he found himself too stunned to move.

"If he gets within thirty feet of the wards he is to be stunned and apparated into my study to await my, or Master Draco's, arrival. For now, he is not to carry a wand. Apart from that, you will serve his every wish like you would serve a Zabini. That is all."

And as if that dismissal was meant for him, Harry turned with a furious snarl and stormed towards the manor to flee the Slytherins' company and retreat into 'his' rooms. He would find a way to escape if it was the last thing he would do!  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, Draco and Blaise are not very likeable right now, but they are going to become nicer, I promise!


	7. The First Attempt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A heartfelt THANK YOU to Sara, adafrog, littlechinesedoll and lexisnotgroundedanymore for the reviews! And thanks for the kudos and well, for reading my scribble in the first place!

Harry stormed through the corridors of Lanai Manor with anger spurred steps, throwing furious and at the same time apprehensive glances back to the light-filled door that led to the garden he had just left.

He was livid. How dare they? How dare they even think for a moment that he would let them cage him? Who did they think they were, setting rules like that and thinking he would obey them like a good little first year Hufflepuff?

'Or a good little _submissive_ mate…' supplied a part of his mind that Harry really didn't care to listen to right now.

But nonetheless the thought made him nervous as he acutely felt his wand's absence in his hand - or his pocket for that matter. There were two crazed, armed Slytherins intending to mate with him in the garden he had just left and he had no means to really fight them off. Oh, he knew a little bit wandless magic but he still felt depleted where his magic was concerned and they would still be advantageous to him. Only willing his bloody wings away earlier had left him tired!

Merlin, how he wished he could just rip them off and be done with the whole matter! But he doubted that would accomplish anything but make him bleed to death, with his luck.

No, he was completely and utterly at the mercy of Draco bloody Malfoy and that skunk Blaise Zabini (who, after his pretentious performance a few minutes ago, was definitely on his hit list), which just strengthened his resolve: he needed to get out of this manor and away from them before they decided to … to what exactly?

Harry couldn't finish the thought, and that made him pause in his steps and frown for a moment. He really didn't know their intentions. He hadn't even stayed long enough to listen to what they wanted from him, what they wanted to do with him, the only thing Harry remembered was that Zabini had said something about not forcing him… more along the lines of teaching and protecting him.  
He bit his lips as his mind played over his short conversation with the two Slytherins. They had flirted with him openly, which had been quite a new experience for Harry and left him feeling uncomfortable around them and yet it had also raised a nervous flutter in his stomach at the same time that was not all that bad, though very much humiliating. But still they hadn't touched him inappropriately in any way and although especially Draco had made the one or the other biting remark, they had been generally suave.

Absentmindedly Harry's fingers ghosted over the artfully painted wall - a mixture of different warm shades of terracotta, oranges and gold that had been applied with a palette knife to form an intriguing play of colours and textures - while thinking over his possible lines of action.  
Should he go back, maybe, and demand that they explain themselves? In a way, they had been forthcoming and helpful during the last 24 hours. But Harry could neither forget nor ignore the way Zabini had tried to lord his bloody rules over him and the way Malfoy had smirked at him, confident of his victory over the Boy-Who-Lived at last… they had probably only pretended to be nice. Even if they had been honest: the two Slytherins had still kidnapped him and refused to bring him back home when he had wished to leave. No, Harry definitely didn't want to go back to them after all of that.

As he stood there, his intense green gaze glided over an open door to his left, just in passing, and if not for the flickering light of an open fire catching his attention, he would not have looked twice.

Subconsciously he made a step towards the door, intrigued. This was an Italian summer: hot and dry; and that meant that this fire was not lit for the purpose of warming.  
Harry looked around cautiously, ensuring that he was still unwatched and alone. Of course, it was always difficult to notice a House Elf who didn't want to be seen, but unless Zabini had told them to watch him, Harry was sure that they would be too polite not to announce themselves. After all, Zabini had ordered them to treat him like an honoured guest, like a Zabini. Afterwards, the Slytherin had dismissed his servants immediately, so Harry was relatively sure he would have heard it if his 'host' had given such orders.

No one was there…

His heart beating madly in his chest, Harry snuck towards the light, careful to not make a sound as he glimpsed into the room.  
It was a study, as large and as elegant as the rest of the manor, with a high ceiling and wide windows, the walls covered with extensive bookshelves. In the centre there stood a large L-shaped desk made of a dark, rich wood with a slightly red hue and adorned with paler inlays and silver ornaments. A black, imposing office chair was behind it, providing such a huge contrast to the set of light chairs in its front that any guest seated there would have to feel disadvantaged to the study's owner.

It didn't interest Harry, not really, though he generally disliked such power plays. His eyes only hushed over the luxurious furnishings and rested for a moment on the burning fireplace that seemed to be magically partitioned off from the rest of the room as it was not radiating any warmth.  
Then his gaze settled on the wide, curved windows behind the desk on the opposite side of the room, flooding it with golden sunlight. They overlooked the garden he had just left and, as the room itself was parterre, it was unfortunately at the same level with the terrace where Zabini, Malfoy, and himself had just partaken of their noon meal - or not quite, seeing as Harry had left before really eating much; a shame, that. The fruits had been delicious and he was still hungry…

Harry shook off that thought and ducked down to hide himself. It would not do to be seen in this study next to a fireplace that was obviously connected to Italy's floo network. That is, if he hadn't already been discovered. Perhaps slightly paranoid, the Gryffindor took the chance to reassure himself that his captors had not followed him. This was his one chance to flee, and he wouldn't let his escape be thwarted by his own rashness…

His heart leaped victoriously as he spotted them a moment later. There, at the small tessellation table – right as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, as if they had not just officially made their former classmate into their captive – sat Malfoy and Zabini, lounging in their respective chairs like big cats so graceful it made Harry envious for but a second.

They had not followed him then; obviously, they didn't take his threats seriously. Well, Harry huffed, he'd teach them!  
It galled him how they could appear so easy in their mind about all of this, more than he cared to admit at the moment, and he balled his fists, watching and fuming as Malfoy's pale form shifted forward on his chair until he sat on the very edge. What was he doing…?

He really should be going, Harry thought idly. He should go on with his plan and search the floo powder that must be somewhere close and flee. But he hesitated for a moment, curiosity getting the better of him - though curiosity about what, Harry really couldn't tell; maybe it was just some kind of sick fascination.

Regardless of the reason, his attention was caught by the hungry look on Malfoy's face as he stared at Zabini, who had his back turned to Harry. It was the same fierce and yet lewd look that had been directed at him, not so long ago, Harry remembered, worrying his lower lip at the queasy feeling in his stomach.

It was odd, really, that those two Slytherins of all people had been the ones to look at him as if he was beautiful and desirable. Harry had never exactly been the target of someone's desire; he wasn't handsome, not like Cedric had been, not like Zabini and Malfoy were.

Sure, Ginny loved him – and he loved her back, cared for her more than he cared for anyone else (except Hermione and Ron) – but there was not much passion between them, he mused. Not that he found anything to be amiss with his and Ginny's relationship; he assured himself a moment later. It was just that seeing the two predators in front of him made him realise that this was something he'd never have with her. Which, he told himself, was okay, right?

Yet still, he kept on watching, caught now, unable to move his gaze away.

Harry didn't notice how his breath quickened as he watched the blonde take a small sip from that golden, wonderful liquid before leaning towards his lover languidly, beckoning him closer. Long, elegant fingers wound around Zabini's neck, the darker skin a beautiful contrast to the paleness of Malfoy's hand, and he was all fluid movements, all liquid grace, and Harry had to envy that, too. With a sudden jerk, the blond tilted his lover's head backwards and to the side and now Harry could see their mouths battling against each other, smudged with golden liquid. One drop ran down Blaise's – no, Zabini's jaw; strong and squared and Harry gulped and held his breath, cursing that damned accurate sight that made him notice the small tremors of Zabini's back and arms and the way his lips opened to release a silent moan that Harry could not hear through the closed windows. It made him see Malfoy's half-lidded eyes as he swooped down, his tongue flicking out to catch the evasive drop. His mouth fastened on his lover's skin, nipping, biting, licking, sucking, teasing and Harry wondered for the split of a second what it would feel like… drowning in the passion of another and surrendering to it…

Before he knew it, a small whimper escaped his lips, startling him almost as bad as the first chirp he had emitted after regaining his sense of hearing. He jumped up, horrified at how his pants seemed to have tightened. That was so not going to happen! Harry would _not_ allow it, not with someone who had proven he couldn't be trusted; No, Harry needed to get away, he _had to_ , and fast! Before he did something really stupid.

Frantically Harry looked around, his eyes rushing over the smooth surface of the chimney piece. Yes! There stood a small, silver box with rich ornaments right on top of it, so prominently that one couldn't miss it. Quickly, he stepped towards it, and with no thought to curses or traps that might be ingrained in the tin, he grabbed it, opened the delicate deadlock and flicked the lid open.  
A wave of relief flooded Harry as he saw the glittery, silver powder and – not missing a beat – he took a handful and threw it into the red-hot embers. Instinctively, he averted his face as the fire blazed up and turned to emerald green flames.

"Now where to?" Harry asked himself aloud urgently. He knew that the Floo Network didn't permit travels between countries, so he couldn't name an English address, and, just his luck, he thought bitterly, he knew not a single address in Italy. Taking a deep breath, Harry stepped into the flames.

'Somewhere' would have to do then. From his first floo experience, Harry knew that he would end up at an address that sounded similarly at least. Merlin, he hoped there would be someone able and willing to help him…

As he turned towards the room again so he wouldn't fall backwards out of the chimney at his travel destination, he almost stumbled, his heart missing a beat. Outside on the terrace, Malfoy and Zabini had just stood, and they stared at him, their expressions screaming 'don't you dare!' at him more clearly than the words would ever have been able to.  
Harry smirked almost gleefully. They were too late.

And he could almost convince himself that his voice shook with relief as he started to murmur the word that would get him away to "Some-"

" _Stupefy!_ "

Harry had no time to be surprised before the red beam of light hit him and his vision went black as he crumbled into the harmless emerald flames.

* * *

  
Draco shook his head as he watched the Gryffindor storm away from their noon table. Really, a Gryffindor who fled from a confrontation? This was definitely one for the books!

"Great…" Blaise murmured behind him and Draco turned just as his fiancé sat down again with a self-mocking smile. "He didn't handle that quite as well as I had hoped he would."

Draco sighed, walking back to his own chair and pulling it a little bit closer to Blaise's before sitting down himself. "Maybe because _we_ didn't handle that quite as well as I hoped we would. But really, I didn't expect him to make the connection so early… or so easily for that matter."

Blaise looked up sharply. Yes, that mistake had been Draco's.

But sooner or later, Harry would have found out anyway, and really, Blaise didn't understand why Potter had made such a fuss about it. Hadn't he told him that they didn't intend to force him to mate? Hadn't Potter understood that he wouldn't be safe on his own? That he would need adult Vykélari to teach him, protect him, even hide him?

Granted, he and Draco didn't really know that much about submissives aside from the fact that they were very powerful and very desired. It had never been an issue after all as they had never expected to actually _meet_ one… Still, even they had read about the high fatality rate of submissives and that was certainly not due to natural occurrences.

Moreover, Draco still owed the brat a life-debt. One that had been acknowledged and accepted which meant that the debt would only be settled if Potter _said_ it was.  
Had Draco not acknowledged the life debt, his magic would have compelled him to repay it in some way or another until it was satisfied and often such things happened in the most unfortunate situations. Therefore purebloods had made a tradition of acknowledging debts of many kinds and having them be accepted by their benefactors. It created a kind of bond between the wizards, fed and ruled by their magic until such a time as the acceptor declared the debt settled. It calmed the debtor's magic so that both parties had more control of the situation.  
It was frowned upon not to acknowledge a debt just as much as it was frowned upon not to accept it. Only purebloods still honoured that age-old tradition, however; a mud-blood or a half-blood would not be expected to do the same, even though purebloods did in the reverse cases; in the rare situations that they owed someone who was not from their circles.

Idly, Blaise wondered if Potter knew that he could ask for quite literally anything short of taking a life - Draco's or someone else's. Probably not, or he would have used the debt to make them give him a portkey back to Britain.  
Well, he certainly wasn't going to tell him; it was in no way his fault that the Gryffindor hadn't bothered to read up on traditions that concerned him.

Where had he left off, again? Ah, yes. Potter's incredible luck with blind guesses… "It really wasn't your fault, Draco. This was something he had to learn eventually. Personally, I think that it was the combination of flirting and the news that he is a submissive while we are both dominant Vykélari that freaked him out."

Draco chuckled lowly. "Ah yes, I know: pulling out his chair for him. Really Blaise?"

"Oh, so leading him to the table like a fragile gentlewoman was any less conspicuous?" Blaise retorted, his lips curled into a sultry, gently mocking smile; but his eyes were gleaming.

Draco's probably did, too, but he hid his amusement by lowering his gaze. "All but telling him to accompany us with nothing but some light silken pyjama trousers…" he murmured, his voice soft as silk.

"Leering at him as if you wanted to devour him whole… did you want to?" Blaise cocked his head as he asked the question, wondering if his fiancé would be honest or if he would try to evade, make excuses. For some moments of silence it seemed that he would.

"He _is_ powerful." Draco said at last, cocking his head at his fiancé with fallacious calmness. No one could deny that; even now Potter's magic started to recover and he couldn't wait until it would dance around the oblivious Gryffindor and play tricks on a spectator's eyes.  
He couldn't help it: power was attractive. Draco knew Blaise understood that.

Nonetheless, he couldn't help it either to feel as if he was reaching for some forbidden fruit.

"Yes, that he is." Blaise agreed. "And handsome. But is that enough to court the trouble he will undoubtedly present us with?"

"Are we doing that?"

"It sure as hell looked like it." Blaise smiled lazily, his black eyes assessing the platinum blond.

Draco smiled back, enjoying himself in that weird way. "I think it looked more like a game."  
It hadn't been, both of them knew that. Their desire towards the black-haired, green-feathered young Vykélari had been honest, but that didn't mean that they had to act on it. They were not mindless, instinct-blinded fools after all and they wouldn't allow their inheritance to rule them.  
Teasing the innocent little thing had been enjoyable, though, and definitely something that Draco could become accustomed to. Potter's reactions were simply delicious.

"He is a Gryffindor, he probably won't be able to tell the difference." Blaise said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And as he is a powerful wizard it might be dangerous to lead him on. We should decide, Dragon: either we humour our parents and try to seduce him into mating with us, or we stay away from him for good, allow him to leave, maybe subtly get him to use the life-debt to 'escape' us… no strings would stay between us and him…"  
That would probably be more than easy: they could simply get a House-Elf to tell Potter about it and have it play the teary-eyed, self-destructive family-traitor… Potter would believe he had won and call in the life debt to get home. After all, the Gryffindor had experience with house elves that acted against their masters.

Of course, their parents would be furious if they didn't claim the submissive for themselves and really, it somewhat went against everything a Slytherin believed in to let such a chance at power and influence go by. If they didn't claim Potter and the enhancement in prestige, influence and power that he would bring, someone else would. Another pureblood family that might even rise above the Malfoys and Zabinis in consequence.  
But they would be happy. Blaise knew he and Draco worked well together, they loved each other and they were very much alike. It was enough, wasn't it? Even though their rare disagreements could become rather violent sometimes - not in a physical way - and even though sex between them was more a satisfying battle than lovemaking. A very satisfying battle, though.

During Blaise's musings, Draco seemed to have reached a decision of his own. One that contented him very much from the look of it.

"Whatever we decide" he almost purred "I want to kiss him at least once when his magic is in full bloom."

"You want to kiss him." Blaise deadpanned and cocked an eyebrow at the unusual bluntness of his fiancé. Really, he couldn't decide if he should be offended, jealous or amused. Something of everything, he guessed. Damn it, it wasn't as if he himself didn't want to taste Potter's lips, the touch of his magic…

A lazy grin broke out on Draco's face and he licked his lips, his eyes burning as he stared at his fiancé, his lover. "Do you want to know why?" he murmured huskily as he leaned forward.

Blaise chuckled lowly and rolled his shoulders. He could feel his own wings press against the skin of his back, wanting to show themselves, flaunt the blazing tones of bronze, copper and gold to seduce the being in front of him. But Draco wouldn't like that. As a dominant his instincts would tell him that the other male was challenging him, and though Draco would know at heart that that wasn't true, the mood would be destroyed beyond reclaim.  
It had already happened more than once; on both boys' parts.

So they always kept a tight rein on their instincts and Blaise was left arching his shoulder blades instead of releasing his wings to erupt from his back.

Well, better that then giving up the minx in front of him.

"By all means…" Blaise said with a smirk and an elaborate hand gesture that could mean anything or nothing at all "Show me if you can!"

Draco accepted the challenge immediately with another lewd smirk. Languidly his right hand reached out to get a hold of his glass with the Hesperides' Nectar and without taking his lust-filled eyes off his lover, he guided the cold, golden liquid to his lips and took a small sip.

Blaise bit his lips and hummed appreciatively as he saw that the platinum blonde was not about to swallow. They had played such games before, but never with that special treat.  
From half-lidded eyes he watched as Draco beckoned him forwards and he obliged just as his lover leaned towards him, too.

Draco kissed him, pressed his lips against his and his long fingers - he had the hands of an artist, Blaise always thought - twined around the back of his head, ran through his thick, black hair, stroking, massaging. He moaned at the feeling and opened his mouth to receive the golden liquid that Draco poured into his mouth, pressed against his waiting tongue with seductive movements.

The heady, exotic taste exploded on his tongue, the prickling of the magic that had sustained the tree from which the ripe fruits had been taken rushing through him. The liquid was as thick as mango juice, as persistent and as velvety in its texture. Draco's tongue followed immediately, mapping the line of his teeth, delving deeper, dancing against his own, with his own. One of them moaned, Blaise couldn't be sure who, but it didn't matter anyway. Still, those lithe fingers stroked over his neck, up and down, alternating between feathery softness and insistent pressure.

The feeling was so much more dizzying due to the magic swirling through the Nectar, its presence not diminishing even after Blaise had swallowed. Draco's taste was there, too, somewhere, inextricably entwined with the golden juice. He moaned into the kiss and brought his own hands up to cup his lover's cheek and pull him closer as pleasure pooled in his groin and his trousers tightened.

A drop ran down his chin towards the line of his jaw and Draco was there, his tongue following the precious liquid. Then he was sucking at his skin, maybe hunting for that rich taste that must have mixed with the one of his own skin. Teeth grazed him, bit him, followed by soothing licks, sucking lips…  
Blaise groaned as he buried his hands in the blond silky hair, still marvelling at the sensations of pleasure mixing with magic. His eyes fluttered close. By Morgaine, he would have to buy more of that stuff…

He wished that Draco was closer, and as he was about to pull the other from his chair and into his lap, the blond stiffened and moved away.

When Blaise opened his eyes inquiringly and a little bit annoyed, Draco was already standing, his lips swollen, his eyes blazing and burning with bafflement and anger as he stared at some point behind the darker Italian.  
Blaise turned around and his eyes were immediately drawn to the quick and sudden movement in his study that was easily visible from their position in the garden: a flash of ultraviolet and of shimmering green feathers. Potter.

He rushed to his feet while next to him Draco stepped forward unconsciously. "Don't you dare!" he hissed, uncaring that the Gryffindor wouldn't be able to hear him. It was obvious what Potter was up to, the way he was searching the area around the chimney. The floo connected chimney.

And damn it, the room was warded against apparition … except for the house elves.  
"Alfar!" Blaise shouted and immediately there was a loud crack and a comparatively tall elf stood before him, bowing so low his chubby nose touched the stones of the patio. His ears quivered at the furious tone in his master's voice.

Blaise didn't care nor pay attention to it. He pointed towards the wide windows of his study where Potter was just opening his box with floo powder. "Stop Potter!" He ordered, his voice like steel, hard and cold.  
The elf - Alfar - looked up for a moment, his eyes twinkling with the prospect of serving his master; but neither Blaise nor Draco noticed it for at that very moment emerald green light flared in the room. Potter had thrown the floo powder into the fire…

Draco strode forward as if he would shatter the windows and storm the fifty metres towards Potter within the three seconds it would take the Gryffindor to vanish. Blaise followed closely.

They didn't notice the loud crack behind them as Alfar vanished, because Potter stepped into the flames that were now licking harmlessly at his legs and the man turned, his eyes widening as he saw them.

He recovered quickly though and then a smirk played around his lips in the fallacious knowledge that he was already safe. And then his lips were moving and Draco could have sworn that his heart missed a beat and Blaise all but ran forward.

A flash of red light lit the spacious study, hitting the black haired man in the chest and Potter started to crumble to the ground. Within a moment though, he was levitated away from the chimney and the magical fire that had almost allowed him to flee.

Almost.  



	8. Rejected Inheritance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: I was somewhat lazy with the taggings and now added everything that might or might not apply to the next twenty chapters, staying on the cautious side. PLEASE REREAD THE TAGS AND THEN DECIDE AGAIN WHETHER YOU WANT TO CONTINUE READING!
> 
> I decided against waiting another day or two before uploading this chapter, since I really want to get this over and done with. In this chapter Draco and Blaise are at their worst, they'll quickly learn better from now on.  
> I gave an extensive explanation for their behaviour in the review replies for the last chapter. If after reading that you still think that you never ever could forgive them their deeds even if they had a total change of heart and you still want to see them dead, I advice you to discontinue reading, you won't ever grow to like Night Flight.
> 
> And now one last word of caution: just because the characters in my story say certain things doesn't mean they really believe that or are not lying to themselves.

"Well done, Alfar." Blaise praised with a curt nod towards the diligent House-Elf as he and Draco entered the study and strode up to Harry's unconscious form that was lying on the carpet in front of the still burning fireplace - a sign that Alfar, too, was a little bit miffed with their ill-mannered, defiant guest, or else he would have conjured him something more comfortable to rest on. Which was quite alright, since Blaise himself wasn't too pleased with the little nuisance either, right now.

Quietly the pair stepped past the preening House Elf and came to a halt in front of the dark haired young Vykélari, gazing down at his face that looked so deceptively innocent in the relaxed state of his magic-enforced sleep. He was not; it would indeed be foolish to think him innocent after the war he had been forced to fight.

"Incarcerous" Blaise intoned, his voice steady and calm, belying the anger he felt. Ropes slithered forward, encompassing and tightly binding the still unmoving body of that foolish Gryffindor. That stupid Gryffindor. That damn impulsive Gryffindor who couldn't even obey the rules for ten minutes! Ten. Bloody. Minutes.

He didn't allow himself to ponder what might have happened if Draco hadn't looked up at that very moment or if Alfar hadn't been just in time. He didn't _want_ to think about what would have happened to the foolish boy. There were many fireplaces in Italy that one would not want to stumble out of, especially one as naïve and inexperienced as Potter, one who didn't know anything about the local wizarding communities, not to mention the fucking language! One who didn't know how easy it was to make a body vanish silently and without a trace.  
Harry Potter was not a name that held much importance in Italy, a country where 'dark' was not necessarily 'evil'. A country where your bloodline was worth more than your money.

Damn it, didn't he ever _think_?

Obviously not! The idiot had never even contemplated the consequences of his actions, too busy challenging the two wizards that were able and willing to help him. They would have to have a serious conversation with that prat before he got himself bloody hurt! And considering the rate with which he brought himself into dangerous situations that meant right now.  
The ropes, though he definitely didn't like seeing them on the other man's body, would ensure that Harry stayed long enough this time to hear them out.

"Ennervate!"

At their feet the foolish thing blinked his eyes open, those eyes that without the hideous glasses were of a stunning, almost unnatural green, that seemed even more so due to the mask of pale ultraviolet and the dark green lines that framed them. Harry shook his head once as if to clear it before he took in his surroundings with one quick glance around the room and then glared at the two Slytherins above him with a truly venomous expression.

Blaise allowed one corner of his mouth to raise even though he was not amused, in no way, but he knew it would irritate the raven and that in itself would make him feel better. Besides, he knew Draco was smirking next to him for some reason or another, and it was better to present a united front against Gryffindor stupidity. Come to think of it, his fiancé had been smirking silently since shortly after Alfar had hunted down Potter.  
He was probably elated at having his former rival at his mercy, not that Blaise would fault him for that, he guessed it must be a rather elevating experience after all those lost endeavours and defeats. But then again, Draco had admitted to his lover how much it had infuriated him to see his school enemy bound and helpless and afraid, lying on that hospital bed in St Mungo's, so maybe it was something different altogether.

Anyway, it was probably of no importance right now; there were more pressing matters to attend to.

Encountering Potter's intense glare calmly for a moment longer, Blaise flicked his wand at the two guest chairs in front of his desk, levitating them close for himself and Draco.

"Untie me!" Potter demanded with a growl as he noticed that his captors intended to have him lie at their feet while they sat down.

"I think not, Harry." Draco murmured with a silky smile, positioning the chair to his liking close to Potter's head and taking his seat. "Not after the stunt you pulled right now."  
Draco really could have admitted that he liked their respective positions, it was obvious, Blaise thought as he himself sat down also. He might not like to cage another Vykélari, but he definitely enjoyed getting the better of Harry for once.  
Languidly Blaise leaned back against the comfort of his arm chair and folded his hands in front of him, elbows propped up on the arm rests, watching, because he knew the silence would be hard to bear for Harry.

Harry, whose eyes flashed so furiously, who snarled at them defiantly but who refused to give them the satisfaction of a futile fight. Who only laid there, waiting with anger and apprehension warring on his pale and yet beautiful face.  
Harry, who was so infuriatingly insubordinate, who refused to bow, who gave no thought to danger and valued his freedom more than his life.

* * *

  
Draco in the meantime was oblivious to his fiancé's irritation as he sat down on his own chair with crossed legs, leaning on one arm rest only, the index finger of his propped up arm idly wandering over his lower lip. Gods, he had felt so elated the moment he had seen through the wide windows how the red light filled the study, hitting Potter and knocking him out. No, not elated … _alive_!  
How he had missed this, the battles, the challenges, the competition that were uniquely Harry Potter. Blaise and he - they had always been allies, comrades in arms if you will, they had never earnestly tried to compete aside from their usual, little games, and those didn't _mean_ anything besides offering entertainment. They were partners. And all the other Slytherins that had surrounded him during their time at Hogwarts had never challenged him due to the simple power of his surname and the money that came with it  
Potter - Harry - was someone to best, someone to conquer. Someone exciting, exciting enough to offer enough diversion for him and Blaise for a lifetime and then some.

Mordred was he glad that his crossed legs were hiding his growing erection. It wouldn't do to scare the skittish creature further. The beautiful thing, even though he was obviously scared, even though the ropes looked so _wrong_ on him.

Draco frowned at that for a moment before he managed to convince his lips into a smile. He would hopefully not wear them for long anyway. "You know, Harry, you really should have stayed to talk about this further. You, sweet, have no idea about the mess your inheritance has gotten you into."

Harry's eyes widened at hearing the endearment and he shifted back a little bit, as much as he could with the restricting ropes encompassing his body and without being too obvious. It was endearing, really, Draco had to grant him as much.

"Untie me! Now!"

Draco chuckled and leaned forward to brush the tips of his fingers against those sharp cheek bones, his smile faltering only a little as Harry jerked his head away. "Believe me, I don't like seeing you tied up like this, but this time you have to hear us out."

At that, Harry gave a disbelieving snort, making Draco frown at him. Before the platinum blond could defend himself, though, Blaise cut in.  
"It was dangerous what you did right there, Harry." He said almost conversationally, but his voice had a dangerous note to it and his light accent was just that little bit more pronounced. Draco straightened and looked over at his fiancé, somewhat surprised at the tone of voice that to him screamed of suppressed irritation.

Harry obviously didn't notice. "I was only about to use the floo connection!"

"And where to? Eh? What address would you have given?"

"Just 'somewhere'." Potter said, tartly. "What do you care, anyway?"

"'Somewhere'? Harry, you are not in Britain anymore! Here in Italy it is a serious offence to violate another's home by use of the floo connection. Most wizards ward the area around their fireplaces with traps, often lethal traps, that kill you the moment you step out of the fireplace without the permission of the owner."

Harry looked taken aback by that but it was impossible to tell if it was the practice itself or what might have happened to him that shocked him more. "I didn't know…"

"No, you didn't! And you didn't care, either. Harry, pureblood families are even more powerful here than they are in Britain and you are not exactly seen as a friend of pureblood values! You might have been killed and your mutilated carcass would have simply vanished with the use of the one or the other dark spell!"

"How was I to know?" Harry cried out, more to stop Blaise's ranting than anything else.  
Unsurprisingly however, it didn't really seem to impress the Italian much. "Couldn't you just obey the rules you were given for ten bloody minutes?"

"Why? Did you honestly think I would lean back and take your shit just like that?" Harry growled "How stupid are you?"

"Careful, Potter!" Blaise warned, his voice dangerously low, and his dark eyes flashed as he leaned forward to hover over Potter's lying form.

From the way he tensed it was obvious that the brunet was not unaffected by the intimidating Italian looming over him like a dark Grim, but he braved him nonetheless, even pressing himself up from the ground with some effort, a challenge flashing in his eyes.  
"What?" Harry taunted. "What will you do? You already kidnapped me! Will you torture me now, too?"

"Don't be stupid!" Blaise drawled haughtily, cocking his head "Why would we torture you? And we did not kidnap you; we took you into … preventive custody."

"Blaise." Draco admonished with an amused chuckle and laid one hand on his fiancé's upper arm to pull him back against the back rest of his chair, before turning to their unwilling guest. "I grant you that it was naïve of us to believe that the Gryffindor role-model would follow without back talk, rule-breaker that you are. But Harry, you should have known better, especially after what we told you…"

"You told me nothing but that I had to stay! You have no right to keep me here! No right to lord it over me!"

"To begin with, Harry, it is your fault that you were not given more information. If I remember correctly, you were the one to run away before we had the chance to tell you more" Draco drawled, his voice like ice, cold and hard and relentless. "So don't you dare accuse us now!"

To his right, Blaise leaned forward, almost leaving his chair "And we have _every_ right to keep you here; didn't you listen to a word we said!"

Harry turned his head away and Draco could see the sinews in his throat flexing with the effort not to shout.  
"Fuck you!" It was no more than a whisper.

From their long years of enmity in which they had always watched each other to the point of obsession, Draco knew that the Gryffindor was close to losing it. And at the same moment he realised that while he had the intimate knowledge of what words would be needed to make Harry start to shout and rant and fight his bonds, of how to arouse his fierce anger, he was completely at a loss as to how to _not_ make him do that, how to _not_ alienate him.  
That would not have bothered him as such, what concern was it of his if Potter hated them? - even though something in his throat constricted painfully at that thought - but it would be easier for all of them if Potter would stay willingly.

With an enormous effort, Draco tried to gentle his voice as he addressed the Gryffindor next. "You are a submissive, Harry, and as dominants, we _do_ have the right to…"

"I. Am. Not." A hiss, almost like Parseltongue.

"Yes you are!" Blaise said fiercely, moving down from his chair to kneel at Harry's side, forcing the brunet to look at him by grasping his chin between his strong fingers. "I can feel it even now! You have no idea of the effect of your marks! Like an aphrodisiac they are, calling out to a dominant to come and woo you, to court you: a strong and fertile submissive!"

That was more than Harry could take at that moment and his magic that had recovered a little bit over the course of the day simply reacted. He felt a little tightening in his chest like a coiled spring retracting and then an almost invisible force dashed forward out of his torso, smashing into Blaise and throwing him against the chair behind him. It was no concentrated hit, just an involuntary shove of magic and much energy was lost without taking effect. It was sufficient, though, to send both the chair and Blaise toppling over backwards with a crash and a surprised outcry from the dark skinned Italian.

"You okay?" Draco asked frantically as he immediately rushed to his fiancé's side, crouching down next to him. One of his hands stroked over the dark locks, carefully feeling for a possible head injury. He felt endlessly relieved as he found nothing aside from a small swelling that would soon become a respectable bump.  
Thank Merlin that the idiot was still magically depleted and hadn't been able to use the full force of his powers, or Blaise might have found himself squished against the walls of his own study.

"I'm okay, it's nothing." Blaise murmured, his dark, shadowed eyes trained on Harry's quivering form, whose skin was now completely bereft of the beautiful green and ultraviolet, his black locks now free of the emerald feathers that had ruffled them so endearingly.  
Damn it, he hadn't meant to push the Gryffindor into trying to reject his inheritance. And he really couldn't whitewash the fact that this was exactly what Harry was doing now: he didn't want to be a submissive Vykélari so much that his magic had taken back the physical changes of his body.

His heart missed a beat for a moment. Was it possible to reject your inheritance? Could Potter simply ignore the changes he had gone through? What if he just never transformed again, never allowed himself to use more of his powerful magic or even had a specialist put a block on it?

The first submissive in so long a time and he rejected the essence of what he now was wholeheartedly. And it was the fault of their poor judgement and domineering behaviour.

* * *

  
Harry felt nauseous, the kind of nausea that suffocates a person after too much labour in the hot summer sun, the body overheating from a mixture of overexertion, too few fluids and salts and the cruel heat. Harry knew that feeling intimately unfortunately, the garden work back at his aunt's and uncle's often being too strenuous for his half-starved body.

He really wanted to vomit, but god, he knew from experience that this wouldn't make him feel better.

Oh, he had known it would be a bad idea, the moment his magic surged forwards but he had been unable to control it … it had just happened. Harry really hadn't meant to hurt the Slytherin, regardless of what the bastard had said.  
"'M sorry." He slurred his speech, his mouth not cooperating in the way he wanted it to and he watched apprehensively as both Draco's and Blaise's hazy forms rushed over to him. God, his head hurt so much and why was his vision so blurry again?

"It's okay, Harry." Blaise murmured soothingly while once again, Draco cut away the bindings from his body. It was a relief when his arms came free and weren't pressed to his uncomfortably hot torso any longer, retaining the warmth further that seemed to smother his body.  
He closed his eyes as blessedly cool fingers soothed the heated skin on his forehead, brushing away his unruly fringe. That felt nice.

"Nothing is okay!" Draco exclaimed angrily and a moment later Harry opened his heavy eyelids to see the pale blond head appearing in his field of vision and he squinted his eyes groggily to see more clearly and be able to gauge the blonde's expression. Not good. It was certainly not good when Draco Malfoy showed his anger so openly, Harry knew that he had learned how to mask his feelings, how to lie and pretend, acting from necessity during the war. Absentmindedly Harry thought that it must have been horrible to have a bunch of lunatics in his own home, lead by a sadistic, unforgiving madman.  
"Wandless magic is not to be taken lightly especially in your state. Do you _want_ to die?"

Since it seemed to be a rhetoric question anyway and he felt too tired to answer, Harry kept his silence and laid still. Draco was such a drama queen, honestly, thinking Harry would die from that single bout of accidental magic; Harry might have told him that, too, had his skull not felt as if someone as powerful as Dumbledore himself had cast _Expulso_ on it.  
Coming to think of it, vomiting seemed to be not that bad an idea. But then again, he would have to move to get rid of his stomach's content and that was definitely not a good idea…

"Your magic is still bleeding out." Draco grumbled above him, the anger in his voice and expression oddly contrasting with the gentleness of his fingers as they moved to cup Harry's painfully tense neck.  
For a moment Harry wondered if he should tell the git to take his hands off his body, but after a moment's contemplation that didn't seem worth the effort it would take him to form the words. And it started to feel … better: Harry had no idea what the two Slytherins were doing but gradually the overheated feeling of his skin receded until the aching of his muscles was at least bearable and the nausea a mere echo. A relieved sigh escaped his lips and he closed his eyes again, enjoying the remission of his pain.

That, however, soon made him qualmishly aware of the feathery caresses of their fingers that they still bestowed upon his face. Harry had never been a friend of close bodily contact. It was fine when one of his friends hugged him or Mrs Weasley, but when he had to keep still and accept a touch on naked skin, he always felt awkward and uncomfortable. He just wasn't used to it. When Ginny had tried to give him a massage - god, was that only a week ago? - he had tensed immediately, causing her light touches to tickle him awkwardly and her firmer ones to hurt. He had tried to keep still but after a few minutes he had stopped her and reversed their positions, giving her a massage instead.  
Really, he just couldn't give himself into such a position of vulnerability…  
And that's what they made him feel: vulnerable. He didn't like it. And yet, their caresses, probably imbued with magic, soothed the last echoes of his headache and made him feel … well, it was just such an intimate gesture that seemed almost affectionate?

"Harry," Blaise began, sounding oddly hesitant. "You _are_ a submissive Vykélari."

Harry tensed. Merlin, how he wished they would stop saying that already! With flaring indignation he tried to dislodge their hands and pull away but Draco calmly pressed him down with both hands on his chests and Blaise's hands encompassed the sides of his face, his thumbs idly massaging his temples.

"Sshh, Harry. It is true. You are one of our kind now and that _will_ change your life and it will be easier for you, if you accept that. But it doesn't mean that the changes will have to be for the worse."  
It was all very well for them, Harry thought, after all they were not the ones being kidnapped and expected to obey and… he should really ask what it entailed to be a submissive Vykélari.

"Please accept what you are, Harry." Blaise murmured urgently. "Someone special, so very special: powerful beyond believe and beautiful. You will gain in influence and esteem and you will be able to achieve great things." Gently the Italian stroked over Harry's cheek with the back of his hand, his expression a carefully measured mask of warmth and sincerity. "What these things are is up to you."  
Harry looked up into the black eyes of the tanned Italian, swallowing thickly around the lump in his throat. What if he didn't want to be powerful? But he knew what the Slytherin implied: he could do much good, if only he accepted his new status.  
That in itself didn't sound so bad at all but Harry really couldn't believe that Draco and Blaise would simply allow him to pursue whatever goal he wished to achieve. It was more likely that they would try to use him for their own interests.

"But understand, Harry: your mate or mates will share in that power and that is why many Vykélari outside of the wards of this manor will try everything to force you to mate with them."  
Almost Harry could have smirked in bitter self-irony. See? They _did_ want to use him.

"And you don't?" Harry asked quietly, staring up at the Slytherin he had barely known before this whole mess had started.

"Draco and I would never force you into anything. We don't want you to mate with someone who would use you to become the next Dark Lord, but that is all."

Gentle fingers grasped Harry's chin, turning him to look at Draco, the blonde's eyes burning with a cold, silver fire. "If something develops between us, I wouldn't be averse. But we won't force you. I'll swear a Wizard's Oath if you want me to."

Harry was silent for a moment, contemplating the blonde's words. They were sincere enough, and yet… "And if not? If I don't want to … with you, when can I go home?"

"We will see." Draco answered with a small smile. "First, though, you have to learn how to better control your magic, how to fly." Here Draco's smile widened, making his normally aristocratic and cool face seem more open and approachable, almost beautiful.

Harry encountered his school-nemesis' intense stare as calmly as he could. He didn't miss the evasion and if he was honest with himself, the unwillingness of his captors to commit themselves to any specific date worried him. Though not as intelligent as Hermione, Harry was in no way stupid. He knew how fatal ambition could be, the question was: if Harry refused to mate with them, would they let him go and risk losing him to one of their enemies, would they keep him imprisoned in this golden cage forever or would they go to the lengths of killing him?

He couldn't believe that they would do that. Not Draco, whose conscience hadn't allowed him to murder Dumbledore. And Blaise really didn't seem to be a killer either.

But would they let him go? Harry couldn't tell. He would have to wait for a chance to escape and in the meantime he would have to lull the two Slytherins into a false sense of security.

"Okay." He whispered before swatting their hands away from his face and sitting up slowly, frowning as he waited for his headache to return and he was relieved when it didn't.  
"Why is my vision so blurred again?"

"You transformed back again, completely." Draco murmured, reaching for the brunet's black hair almost wistfully as if he missed the green feathers. Harry shied away; he didn't want them to touch him right now, not while he didn't know what they planned to do with him in the long run.  
"Then I need my glasses."

"I will contact my father tomorrow morning and see what of your possessions I can get for you."

Harry eyed the blonde a little bit warily. "Thanks, Malfoy."

"Draco, my name is Draco."

"Okay." Harry relented, even though it was odd to call him that when during their long years of enmity they had always ever called each other by their surnames. But really it wasn't worth the fight and furthermore he needed to at least pretend to cave in.

"You could always transform your eyes back." Blaise spoke up, his black eyes seeming to stare right into Harry. "Not right now after you exhausted yourself like that, but tomorrow morning. You wouldn't need the glasses then."

Something in the Italian's expression made Harry wonder if this was more than a simple suggestion, a test maybe. The way Blaise kept looking at him, waiting for an answer as if it would decide all their future dealings…  
"I like my glasses." Harry shrugged uncomfortably. And really, he had enough for now of the freakishness of his inheritance. Even his blurred sight was somewhat of a relief, a bit of normality and familiarity where his world had seemed too instable otherwise.

Blaise nodded. "All right."  
Somehow, Harry couldn't shake off the feeling that he had given the wrong answer.

* * *

  
"He is rejecting his inheritance!" Blaise pressed out, resting his chin on his arms that were folded on the edge of the spacious pool. Draco watched him with a grimace, seeing the way the Italian's jaw muscles worked tensely. That must _hurt_!

They were alone in the pleasantly tempered water, Harry having retreated into his rooms, tired from the accidental magic he had cast earlier and probably to escape their presence for a while. It was understandable and, to be honest, quite welcome as Blaise had found it increasingly difficult to stay calm around the Gryffindor.  
They had swam rounds in the ridiculously large pool for almost an hour, an hour during which Blaise's head only emerged from the water long enough to draw a deep breath and keep on diving. That had always been one of his habits and Draco privately thought it suited his silent character. Blaise needed to think things through and he revelled in the deep, all-encompassing silence the water provided him with. Blaise loved water, which was a little bit strange seeing as Vykélari were meant to fly and not to swim. But then, there were aquatic birds also.

"We don't even know if that is possible, Blaise. Don't jump to conclusions." Draco cautioned from where he sat at the edge of the pool right next to his fiancé, drops of water still clinging to his bare torso.  
"Tomorrow we will speak with my father and see what he found out. And if nothing comes out of it we will simply have to show him the thrill of flying on one's own wings, the wonderful things he could do with his magic. If he has the spirit of a Vykélari he will not be able to deny himself those pleasures."

Blaise growled lowly, not really appeased by that proposal. Not at all.  
He had deliberated why it bothered him so much that the newly fledged submissive would reject his inheritance because of them and he didn't like the reasons. Injured pride that the submissive would rather dismiss his powers instead of taking to Draco and him, a misplaced desire for that same power and for that lithe body and the searing knowledge that the thought of another Vykélari aside from his fiancé and him taking those two things galled him beyond reason. He didn't love Potter, Merlin, no, he didn't even like him exceptionally well, merely respected him somewhat grudgingly; but he would be damned if the only existing submissive would end up in another's arms!

Mordred, how was he to tell his fiancé?

Once more he submerged below the water's surface, his hands moving to keep him down. Immediately the water pressed against his ears, filling them with the sound of his own rushing blood, the sound of the water currents moving, the small waves hitting the edge of the pool. He heard Draco's left leg moving in a slow, small circle, disturbing the water's flow, the sound exaggerating the movement because he was so close and because there was barely anything else to hear.  
Yes, how was he to tell Draco?

Idly he let a small amount of air escape his lips, watching the small bubbles heading upwards like small, transparent jellyfish towards the surface where he saw Draco's distorted form looking down at him.  
Draco who disliked Harry with a passion.

Blaise shook his head, letting the way his hair moved with the water distract him for a moment. He loved that feeling. Maybe he should let his hair grow just to experience it more strongly.  
Hmmm. But Draco had also said he wanted to kiss the other teen. And really after feeling with the Hesperides' Nectar how magic could enhance the experience, Blaise certainly was not averse to the idea. Harry's magic might just prove to be addictive.

Absentmindedly Blaise pushed himself away from the pool's wall, treading the water softly with both his legs, not minding the resistance it offered to his movements as he floated there on his back in what was the closest thing to weightlessness there was on earth.  
Merlin, it had only been a day. One single day and already he was determined to keep a tight hold of _Harry Potter_ of all people, if Draco assented that is. He would never risk losing Draco. The blonde was too precious to him.

One single day. They were right when they said never to underestimate the seductive capabilities of power. What could he say? He was a Slytherin.

Gradually his lung started to burn from the lack of air, a sign that his little retreat into the silence of the water was about to end. A pity that, he could have used some more time alone with his thoughts.  
Turning in the water, Blaise stemmed his feet against the tiles of the pool, and pushed himself off. When he broke to the surface, filling his lungs with the sweet air and brushing the wetness out of his eyes, Draco was there at the side of the pool, one of the large, fluffy towels wrapped around his narrow hip, another held open for him.  
Smiling a little bit hesitantly, Blaise swam towards the blond, still unsure of what was to come.

"Better now?" Draco asked with twinkling eyes as the dark skinned Italian hauled himself out of the pool and accepted the towel. "What had you in such a state, love?"

Sighing, Blaise pressed the white towel against his face, wiping it dry and gaining some moments of time. "Harry."

"Of course." Draco said amicably, as if that was a perfectly well reason and the little smile in his voice made Blaise look up at him. His blond lover countered his gaze calmly, waiting for him to elaborate.  
"I think we should strive to mate him." Blaise deadpanned, really not having the patience right now or the nerves to be more subtle.

Draco cocked a perfectly groomed eyebrow before looking towards the windows on first floor of the manor behind which Harry's rooms were situated. " _You_ were the one to appeal to me for caution regarding him."

"I know." Blaise conceded. "But today made me realise that there are only three possibilities: either we mate with him, another does, or he dies. I don't want him to die, the first submissive in two centuries! If he dies without a male descendant there might never be another. I am too fascinated with magic to allow it to vanish, _you_ are too fascinated to allow that. It has to be preserved."

Draco looked back at him, his eyes gleaming and the corners of his mouth twitching into an unwilling smile. "You are right. And?"

"And I don't want another to rule that power." Blaise said, watching as Draco lowered his eyes to hide the wicked elation that flared in them. It didn't work, Blaise had already seen it. So Draco wanted the younger teen also? Interesting.

"That power. Yes, I admit to desire it also." Draco purred and again he looked towards the Gryffindor's rooms, his lips curling into a complacent smirk.  
"And I admit that I love a challenge." This challenge and all the challenges Harry might decide to put in his way in the future.  



	9. Adler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is going to be one scene where Blaise tops Draco and another where Draco tops Blaise. Here is one of them.

Soft lips brushed over the hollow of his throat enticingly, barely touching him at all, and he could feel warm breath caressing his sensitive skin, teasingly blowing over the wet trail that his lover's tongue must have left behind moments earlier, when his brain had still been too clouded by sleep to take notice. He could feel the little hairs on his skin rising in response with the pleasure of it and he arched upwards, seeking more contact, stretching his shoulders that itched with the need to release his wings.  
"Mmm…" God! How he loved waking like this…

He tried to bring up his hands to stroke over those strong shoulders, fully intending to let them glide downwards and tease over the skin on his lover's side and let them twine around his torso to gain enough leverage to reverse their positions. But he found himself unable to and he looked up: his hands were tied to the headboard, loosely enough to not hurt him but firmly enough to bereave him of the chance to break free.  
Fixing his glare on his lover's form, he growled lowly in open annoyance. He wanted to _touch_!  
"Blaise!"

The lips that were currently working their way down Draco's chest stopped, curling into a wicked smile against his already feverish skin. "Hmm?" The Italian hummed inquisitively before sucking one of the blonde's nipples into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth, torturing the small nub with his tongue.

Draco hissed and threw his head back, bucking against his lover, before falling down onto the soft mattress again. "Fuck, Blaaaaiise!" He moaned and bit his lower lip sharply.  
Blaise chuckled lowly against his flesh and started to pinch Draco's other nipple, toying with it while still sucking, licking and kissing the one beneath his lips. Jolts of searing pleasure burned their way down through Draco's body directly to his groin, which was quickly becoming the centre of his circulation and gods, the feeling was wonderful and maddening and oh, so not enough!  
He wanted more, more contact, more pleasure, he wanted to bury his cock in Blaise's tight heat or watch his lips wrapped around his length, deep-throating him skilfully. Or goddammit, he wanted for his lover to take him, possess him. Anything, just anything, something…

But Blaise merely teased his way down to his navel, dipping his tongue inside for a moment, relishing in the desperate moans that action elicited from his platinum blond treasure.

"God, Blaise, untie me!"

"What was it you said to Harry? 'I think not'." And just like that, the tanned Italian followed the line of hair over the rippled, quivering muscles of Draco's abdomen, ever downwards to where his prize awaited him, nestled between blond locks.  
"I need to have you now. And I sure as hell don't want you to interfere!"

Whatever Draco's answer would have been, it was washed away in sudden pleasure as surely as any unanchored thing by a tsunami as Blaise gripped him, weighing his hardening length in his palm, stroking once, twice and sending spikes of pleasure through Draco's body that drowned his mind in a deep, impenetrable haze of pure bliss.  
It stopped too soon, as Blaise's hand uncurled from around his prick, leaving merely one finger behind to move tantalizingly over the thick vein on the underside. Draco moaned and almost whimpered out of desperation, helplessly pulling at his bonds and flexing his hips.

"Sshh, Dragon." Blaise murmured huskily, his free hand ghosting over the blonde's alabaster thigh in calming, soothing circles.  
Draco bit his lips, frustrated beyond measure. Damn it, what accursed thing had caused the bastard to think Draco needed soothing? God, by Mordred and his twisted mother and the Seven Sisters and who else "Fuck me, now!"

His very annoyed outcry was answered with a deep chuckle that seemed to reverberate through his body and gods, Blaise seemed to be in one of his cruel mindsets because he closed lithe fingers around the base of Draco's cock in an imitation of a cock ring to keep him from cumming. Then he bent down to press a light kiss on the tip of his lover's raging erection. His tongue dove out to tease over the slit, pressing in for but a moment and making Draco cry out in abandon and flex his hip in a futile attempt of getting _deeper_ into that hot mouth.  
Blaise, the accursed devil, pulled back and waited a moment, before repeating his actions and this time, his lover managed to keep from moving, but he hissed a litany of curses and swearwords nonetheless and his head rolled from side to side as Blaise finally took him in, sucking and licking and _humming_! Draco would have come from the vibrations that moment if not for the tight ring of fingers still wrapped around the base of his cock.  
Gods, how he wished Blaise would straddle him and lower himself onto his aching need and just fuck himself hard and deep and fast. Or stop teasing and end his torment in another way…

"Jerk!"

"I love it when you sweet-talk during sex." The dark Italian murmured amusedly against his cock, the deep baritone of his voice doing unspeakable things to Draco.  
But it seemed Blaise was taking pity on him: he withdrew and a moment later Draco shuddered at the sudden cool wetness between his legs in consequence to the muttered cleaning and lubrication charms. Persisting yet gentle hands urged his legs up into a bent position that caused his back to arch and his ass to stick into the air, easily accessible for his lover.  
And then the thick head of Blaise's oil covered hard-on nudged against his tight, un-stretched entrance and slowly, ever so slowly, the bastard pushed downwards and in, causing the wrinkled skin to stretch around his penetrating flesh with a shallow, burning pain and Draco hissed but he didn't want it to stop.  
Insistently he tugged at the hands holding his ankles apart and they released him, gripping his hips tightly instead, leaving Draco free to wrap them around his lover's chest.

Contracting his strong leg muscles, Draco pulled the tanned Italian close, burying him deep inside him in one go. Twin groans filled the air, one of pure pleasure, one tinted with pain.  
"Now fuck me!" Draco whispered fiercely, even though he knew that he would feel it for many hours if the other moved now without him having a chance to adapt to the considerable size invading his body. Grey eyes flashed in a silent challenge and for a moment Blaise wondered how such a cold colour like that ice-grey could burn so hot.

But he obliged and soon, his hips were slamming forwards, the sound of flesh hitting flesh filling the room. Draco tried to counter each of the hard thrusts one by one but he didn't have much leverage and that in itself was frustrating but rather quickly forgotten as Blaise pounded his prostrate, hitting it with every violent flexing of his hips.  
Draco moaned and hissed and Blaise bit his lips, ever the silent one, his muscles tensing and quivering under the onslaught of sensations.

"Harder!" the blonde demanded and Blaise forcefully pushed into him, his pace brutal, exactly how Draco wanted it. The two lovers locked gazes, feverish, piercing, burning, and Blaise could feel the walls around his flesh tightening erratically and not even half a dozen thrusts later, Draco came with a hoarse outcry, his seed splashing against the tanned, smooth skin of Blaise's stomach.

Blaise threw his head back, his mouth opened in a silent scream of pleasure as he kept on thrusting into the tight heat. Beneath him Draco moaned helplessly, shaken by the powerful sensations of his orgasm that still flooded his whole body and left his nerves raw. It didn't help any that his lover was still pounding into him without restraint as if in a frenzy, his cock sliding torturously over the overwrought nerve endings deep within him.  
Soon Draco's legs were giving out, but before he could lower them from their place around the other man's chest, Blaise grabbed them at his ankles once more, bending them towards Draco's chest, the new position allowing him a deeper penetration, a fact he took advantage of immediately.

He bowed over the bend form of his lover, looming over him and watching him writhe with every push, his fiancé, the pale beauty beneath him who was all tied up for him and completely and utterly at his mercy, trusting him to never use it against him.

And with that thought, Blaise finally tensed and with a last deep thrust he spilled himself into the tight channel of his lover.

Moments passed with neither of them moving, just basking in the afterglow and breathing, or panting rather. Then, equally as gently as he had been forceful and violent earlier, Blaise pulled out, grimacing sympathetically at the small wince that got him.  
"Sorry." He whispered, bringing one shivering hand to caress Draco's face.

"Don't be. I asked for it. But could you untie me now?" Draco asked, wriggling his wrists for emphasis.

Blaise chuckled as he reached for his wand and flicked it at the ties to release them. "Mmm. But you were glorious." Mischievously he cocked his head and smirked. "Nonetheless we should hurry and clean up if we want to speak to your father before getting Harry for breakfast."

Draco blinked, then looked up, aghast. "God, Blaise, my father! Merlin, I'll kill you! Did you have to be so rough knowing we'd meet with him? If I can't walk or sit down in front of him without wincing, I'll castrate you! Would rid me of some major problems!"

Blaise merely grinned, completely unabashed "Your fault for not remembering it before asking me to do you harder."

"You could have reminded me." Draco grumbled ill-humouredly as he stood, wincing at the soreness in his nether regions.  
¬  
"Oh, come, Dragon: it's all a question of control, endurance and your skill as an actor..."

* * *

  
Draco was rather good in all three of those, as things turned out not even half an hour later. He strode into Blaise's conference room as if he owned it, his steps sure, measured and graceful and he even managed not to glare at his lover's smirk.

The long conference room that looked more like a hall or a galleria than an actual room, was at the eastern side of the manor, and thus, the sun shone brightly into it through the large, high windows that were embedded in the outer wall in regular distances. The natural light swathed the pale walls in a golden hue, interacting with the cleverly and artfully painted wallpaper, which was kept in different tones of sandstone and beiges to form an intriguing yet subtle play of colours. The whole length of the room's arched ceiling was adorned with a detailed fresco showing the Roman Pantheon in all its glory: the ruling triumvirate consisting of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva with her owl and around them Apollo with his Kithara and Mars who was armed with a spear and shield. Diana was surrounded with trees and animals, then the beautiful Venus; Ceres graced the image next to a wheat sheaf and there was Vesta, the goddess of hearth, home and family, and not far from her sat Bacchus amidst his grape vines. Mercury was there with his winged sandals, and Neptune and Amor with trident and bow, Asclepius (the god of medicine who had been known in both Greece and Italy) and Vulcan.

It was a sight that both Blaise and Draco knew well enough by now to not be distracted by it, even though the richness of detail, the beauty and finery of it were astounding. Without hesitating or slowing down both of them crossed the room, passing a row of stiff and uncomfortable looking chairs that were arranged around a long U-shaped table that dominated the room and opened towards a seemingly naked wall on the other side.

While Draco sat down on one side of the table, Blaise approached a small, two-drawer dresser standing in the corner next to the blank wall and casually opened the top drawer. His fingers glided over the filing system in it with practiced ease, briefing through the labelled folders until he found what he had searched for under the name of 'Malfoy Manor'. Swiftly Blaise took out the folder and opened it, and the velvet-lined envelope revealed a small rectangular mirror, barely as large as a man's hand.  
Careful to not touch the reflective surface and dirty it with his fingerprints, Blaise took the mirror and held it, shoulder-high, against the wall. As the levitation charm that covered the wall hummed against his fingertips, he let go and watched for a moment as the silver thing floated in the air, mere centimetres away from the wallpaper.

"Engorgio." He voiced, careful to speak clearly and pronounce the spell correctly and minding his wand movement. The mirror was quite valuable, no need to damage it with a poorly casted spell. Immediately the mirror started to grow until it covered the whole side of the room, reflecting the conference table, the ceiling fresco and in front of it all, Draco and Blaise.

"Lucius Malfoy."  
And with that a ripple went through the silvery surface, the colours it showed mixed and swirled together. They rearranged themselves and then, moments later a new room took form, or rather one side of another room in Malfoy Manor. It was a kind of two-way mirror that formed a visual and acoustic connection between Malfoy and Lanai Manor. The set-up had been expensive, but it was a much more comfortable and _clean_ way of communication and furthermore it enabled the owners of the respective pair of mirrors to converse cross-border, which was not possible when using the floo connections due to the different networks.

This specific mirror was connected to Draco's home and currently showed a room in Malfoy Manor and with it, a peculiar foursome already waiting for the engaged couple: right in the front, on an arm chair each sat Lucius, Narcissa, Amalyne and, surprisingly enough, Severus. The wall behind them was covered in portraits of, as Draco noticed with a surprised frown, some of his ancestors, all of whom looked at them with an air of dignity and solemnity worth of any Malfoy. It was in all honesty not the sight that Blaise and Draco had expected to see: they had agreed with their parents to meet in the mornings of every second day and keep them informed about the newly fledged Vykélari. They had not expected for Draco's godfather to be there also and neither for all of the portraits. Draco knew very well that those used to hang in the family gallery and so his father or his mother seemed to have deliberately decided for them to join their conversation; for what reason, he couldn't tell.  
And then there was the fact that his father would usually hold mirror-meetings in his study and not in the parlour the foursome currently occupied. Though Draco guessed that might have something to do with the amount of portraits hanging on the far wall, there would never have been space enough for them in his father's study, stuffed with book shelves as it was. Merlin, there must have been more than a dozen pictures of varying sizes…

"Good morn…" Blaise started but was soon interrupted by his former teacher's cutting voice.  
"You are late!"

"Behave, Severus." Lucius drawled. "Do I have to remind you: It is the duty of a godfather to spoil his godson."

"There was never a reason to do that, seeing as you managed to spoil him enough for a whole league of godfathers."

"Oh, be quiet!" Narcissa said before turning to her son and soon-to-be son-in-law with a smile.  
"You look wonderful, the two of you. Italy becomes you well, it seems. Maybe I should visit sometime."

"I would gladly accompany you, dearest; it can be stunningly beautiful with the right guide." Amalyne smiled at her friend. And if 'sometime' became 'soon', they could maybe intervene in a guiding capacity in certain, very important matters.

"Uhm." Draco blinked in a very undignified matter, but really after having been shagged senseless half an hour before and with his behind still stinging as a reminder whenever he moved, he just couldn't cope very well with such unexpected bouts of surrealism.  
"What is all of this?" he gestured towards the portraits, which huffed in indignation at his very un-Malfoyish behaviour.

"These are the last seven Malfoys who mated with submissive Vykélari and of course their husbands." Lucius answered with a self-congratulatory half-smile. "I thought we might as well leave the mirror-connection open so that you can consult them whenever you have a question concerning your charge. How is he, by the way?"

"Still in denial, I'm afraid." Blaise said with a sigh. "We had a small … incident … yesterday. Upon hearing that he was a submissive he lost it and tried to escape the manor via the floo connection."

Severus snorted disgustedly. "I told you, he is more trouble than he is worth."

Draco and Blaise both frowned at the former head of Slytherin house with irritation and, more importantly, confusion: when had they stopped taking pleasure in the derogatory things their former professor never failed to say about the Gryffindor Golden Boy?

"Lucius," one of the portraits drawled. "You should get rid of that man! Too intellectually challenged to be more than an inferior to a Malfoy and too insubordinate to be just that."

"Careful, Marcus, or Cygnus will throttle you in your painting." The current Malfoy patriarch answered without looking back. The portrait however, fell silent. Cygnus was notorious for his cruelty as well as for his fatherly affection towards a certain potions master. And there were certain nasty things a portrait could do to another portrait.

Severus smirked quietly to himself.

"In any way: " another portrait said calmly, completely ignoring the petty bickering around him "a submissive is worth whatever trouble he might cause during courting. Especially some." his eyes gleamed within the painting with an intelligent sparkle, attester to his ruthlessly calculative persona. He was a tall, formidable looking young man in his dark, unpretentious dress robe that was adorned only with silver edging; his platinum blond hair, a trademark of his family, flowed down his shoulders in rich waves. His appearance and bearings made him stand out amongst his family, for despite his obvious youth - he could not be older than twenty-five in this picture - he seemed quieter and calmer and lacked the often displayed haughtiness. He was obviously self-confident, but enough so that he didn't have to assure his environment of that fact constantly.  
One corner of his mouth twitched and he glanced down to another painting that seemed to be empty, only showing a magnificent rose garden. Then, silently, as if only to himself, he murmured "Not all of them are eager to mate."

Draco and Blaise looked up sharply at that, encountering the deep blue eyes that were darker than Draco's own and, despite the soft smile on the man's lips, couldn't be any graver. But before they had a chance to probe deeper, Amalyne interrupted them.

"How did you react?" she asked, leaning forward. "You know that sometimes it is leniency that wins favour."

'They speak as if Harry was a child to be groomed into a demure, well-behaved and biddable house-wife!' Blaise thought, rather irritated, and very irritated that he was irritated in the first place. This was his mother, for god's sake!  
Next to him, Draco squeezed his forearm soothingly and answered a little bit guiltily for both of them. "I'm afraid, we could have handled it better."

"We didn't realise how bad he was taking the news of his heritage." Blaise continued, his voice still a little bit tight, as he sat down next to his fiancé. "I tried to push him into accepting it and his magic reacted. It retracted all the changes of his transformation and afterwards he was exhausted and seemed even more reluctant." There was really no need to tell them that Harry's accidental magic had attacked him.  
"That reminds me, could you try to get some of his things from those Weasleys? He needs his glasses and though I don't want to return his wand to him just yet it wouldn't hurt to at least know it is accessible for us."

"Of course," Narcissa said. "I will contact them. They have been made aware of what Mr Potter is and with whom he is at the moment. They will not interfere or hinder you." Draco nodded his thanks. This was at least something to calm Harry with: his precious weasels knew about the situation and didn't have to fear for him needlessly.

"But why does he need his glasses?" Lucius asked with a frown, fixing the two younger men with an inquisitive stare.

Blaise sighed. "He would rather wear his glasses than endure his changed vision. We think he's trying to reject his inheritance." He paused, looking at the seemingly impassive expressions of the four persons on the other side of the mirror, knowing that they were irritated by the news.

"Is that even possible?" Draco asked and he glanced at the portraits behind his parents, seven of which were submissives themselves according to his father. But he couldn't for the life of him understand why someone would even want to reject such a gift, let alone try to actually do it. He was pretty sure they didn't know it either.

"It isn't possible." One of the older paintings said confidently, but it seemed the man was speaking more from guesswork than actual knowledge. "Powerful magic wants to be used. It would become wild and dangerous and make itself noticeable and unavoidable."  
Others murmured affirmatively, or nodded.

"It is possible." The young man said again, as quiet as before.

"Oh be quiet, Adler! There is no proof…"

"My husband did suppress his inheritance, quite successfully." He pointed out, still not even a hint of annoyance in his quiet voice.

"Yes, very successfully." Another painting drawled. "After all you felt his outstanding magic."

The younger one, Adler, shook his head. "I didn't feel it. I _suspected_ it." Then he raised his head, looking at the Malfoys, Zabinis and Severus in front of him.

"If he is akin to my Ives in any way at all, your so called submissive will rather die than leave himself in your hands just because you want him to. You were enemies, if I did not misunderstand the situation?"

"They were, during their days at Hogwarts and that unfortunate war." Lucius said, his lips drawn into a tight line. But really, he wasn't so sure if it was the war that had been unfortunate or its ending.  
The one ending that had been achieved meant the attenuation of pureblood values, the other would have meant the death of the one and only submissive they knew of.

"Then indeed, he will find a way. Do not underestimate him, for despite his youth he lead a war and killed a lord level wizard. Be kind…"

"I know exactly what he is capable of, Adler! _And_ how to treat him. Thank you very much." Draco's eyes flashed; he was a little bit vexed that someone who had been dead for well over three centuries was trying to give him love advice.

"Do you? My great-great and many more greats, grandson? Is that why your little nightingale tried to flee your esteemed company? Please do me the favour of sharing in your rich knowledge sometime." Adler said pleasantly, no hint of mockery tainting his silky voice. Only his eyes were laughing.

Draco narrowed his own eyes, but he didn't answer. He had heard worse insults during the war and had needed to learn how to deal with them without reverting to violence and insult. Blaise was more reluctant to let it go, it seemed.  
"There is no need for rudeness." he growled next to Draco, his voice dangerous, ominous.

"I agree." Narcissa said with a pleasant smile, throwing a warning glance at her son and his fiancé. Adler Malfoy had been a rather powerful man in his day; while he had been the Malfoy patriarch, the family had gained much influence and amassed great riches; in fact Adler had made a major contribution to the prestigious standing his family still held, exploiting the power he had gained through his mating with a submissive to its full potential.  
One didn't gain his assistance with snide remarks.

"But Adler, if you please, how can we persuade young Mr Potter to accept his heritage?"

"That I cannot say, as I do not know him." Adler conceded with a barely perceptible nod. "Most probably if he didn't know of his Vykélari heritage beforehand, he is afraid. Maybe it is the idea of not being human or the idea of submitting to another man. Maybe he doesn't like to lose control over his life or there is a relationship that his inheritance would now destroy. If he just didn't like the two of you, he would embrace his gifts and use them to flee. Breaking through wards is no difficulty for a well-rested submissive. After all it is solely a matter of magical strength to do that."

Draco and Blaise shared an alarmed glance. What if Harry, the moment his magic had replenished itself, apparated away right through the wards? They would never know where he had gone to and might not find him in time to prevent another Vykélari to catch him, or someone who didn't want that much power in the hands of a single person to murder him.  
"How can we keep him from breaking through the apparition wards?" Blaise asked.

"Most often when a submissive is unwilling, one would simply put a block on his magic." One of the elder portraits said, Marcus, the one who had insulted Severus earlier. "But most often, it isn't necessary."

"And all Vykélari love their freedom. Blocking his magic will only make him hate you." One of the submissives said.

"In any case," Marcus continued "our family magic is strong, like the Zabini's, our markings bear witness to it. No submissive would hesitate to join with such powerful families."  
Narcissa coughed delicately and Amalyne pursed her lips, while Lucius and Severus both turned towards the collage of paintings in their back, openly disdained expressions on their face. "Didn't you listen as I described the boy?" Lucius drawled scornfully.

"Mr Potter is not impressed by power - " Severus said in a perfect replica of his friend's tone of voice "political or magical, he doesn't care because he is powerful enough himself in both regards, being the Boy Who Lived -" That much, Severus had to concede, he was after all not naïve.  
"And he blatantly disregards any authoritative figure he comes across. And there are things that all of you dismissed too easily: Mr Potter will be inclined to flee Zabini Manor, merely because he is held captive there in the first place. He has some issues with such things. And he will try to flee _you_ , because he will think that you bullied him into staying. Again: he has some issues with bullies. All a leftover from his childhood, I'd guess."

"How would you know about his childhood? I thought you hated him…" Draco asked.  
From Severus' look Draco could tell that he thought the question to be foolish, and that he had expected better of his favourite student, but Draco didn't back down.

"Severus, don't be difficult!" Lucius sighed, vexed. "I swear you spend too much time with Cygnus…"

"It would do all of you much good to spent more time with him, but be that as it may, I was a spy for his side! Do you think I was too unobservant to not find out some things about that boy? Furthermore, I gave him Occlumency lessons on Dumbledore's order. You have no idea what I have seen in that head of his…"

"Occlumency lessons…" Lucius was baffled.

Severus nodded. "During his fifth year, to keep such things as the Ministry incident from happening. Unfortunately he was a lousy student. He thought to be so clever, thought he could use the connection to his advantage without the Dark Lord noticing it. His naivety and impulsiveness cost him his godfather. Good riddance, I'd say. In any case it was a wake-up call for Potter, which was much needed."

"What about his childhood?" Narcissa asked. "Why do you say he has issues with deprivation of liberty and … bullies?"

"The family Dumbledore put him with hated Potter, or more specifically, they hated magic." Severus eyes seemed to glaze over as he remembered something. "Until his Hogwarts letter he lived in a cupboard under their stairs. His cousin bullied him whenever he could and was spurred on by the boy's aunt and uncle. They didn't beat him, I think, his aunt and uncle I mean, at least I didn't see any proof of it, but his cousin did. With his clique of underlings he hunted Potter through their neighbourhood. Beat him black and blue."

Severus harrumphed and leaned back in his chair with a frown. It were always those images that made him feel so conflicted. He knew he should take pleasure in them, ridicule Potter because of them, but always they appalled him instead. And nonetheless he had let Potter feel his scorn whenever he came across such memories during their lessons. He had hated himself for that, had hated Potter more for making him hate himself.

"I don't think he ever had any friends before Weasley." He continued almost mechanically.  
"In the summer after his first year at Hogwarts they imprisoned him in a spare bedroom, putting bars in front of the windows. Practically starved him, too." Severus' felt his throat tighten. He knew there was a reason why he had never allowed himself to think about what he had seen in Potter's memory. It had been easier to dismiss each of the countless flashbacks individually, but summarized, they seemed oppressive.

"Another aunt of his, the sister of his uncle, she had a dog and the whole family watched it chase Potter through their backyard until he managed to climb a tree. It was the aunt he accidentally blew up in the summer after his second year, I don't know if you heard of the incident. After what I saw in his memories, I don't even want to know what she did to finally make him retaliate."

"Merlin, Severus." Narcissa gasped, a delicate hand covering her lips. "How could Dumbledore leave him with such a family!"

The potions master shook his head dazedly. "Some blood wards that were keeping him safe from the Dark Lord. I know that Minerva didn't want to do it, but Dumbledore was adamant. Maybe he would have been dead before the Dark Lord had been resurrected, maybe not; who knows?"

Draco clenched down on Blaise's hand in his grip. He wanted to ask how his godfather could have still been so horrible to Harry when he had known of all those things, he wanted to search the younger Vykélari and hide him away from such horrors. He wanted to _hurt_ those people…  
And he had no right to do any of those, after all he had done to Harry during their days at Hogwarts.

Slowly, Blaise wound his hand out of Draco's tight grasp and laid it around his shoulders instead, pulling him close. How he wished he had known earlier of Harry's history. It was not that he regretted his actions per se, but he would have been more understanding, would have been gentler when placing those restrictions upon the young submissive.

Silence stretched over the two rooms as everyone tried to digest what they had heard.  
"I will have them killed." Amalyne said finally, almost reassuringly as if she was talking about getting compensation for a broken, expensive vase. Lucius nodded once, his eyes hard and cold, already thinking of several dark books full of curses that were almost impossible to detect…

"Don't!" Severus spoke up. "Whatever you do, don't touch the Dursleys. Potter wouldn't want anything to happen to them. They were even specifically protected from the Dark Lord during the war. He would turn on you."

"So what do we do now?" Blaise asked. "Draco and I decided that we would mate him, but not against his will." He deliberately ignored the delighted and somewhat complacent expressions of his mother, Narcissa and Lucius. Really, could they look any more smug?

"Well, I am elated to hear that, dear." Amalyne cooed. "But it might take some … coaxing, you realise that?"

"Not against his will, mother." Blaise said, very seriously. "Never against his will. If we give him time and some reasons to, he will come to us willingly."

Narcissa smiled at them gently. "I think you are doing the right thing. In the long run it will be better for all of you if he entered a mateship of his own accord."

"I hope the two of you know what you are facing." Severus muttered while Lucius frowned next to him.

"Don't let him control you."

"We won't father." Draco didn't tell his father that he had no wish to control the Gryffindor either. He didn't think the Malfoy patriarch would condone that "But if we can't keep him in the manor without shackling him - which he would hate us for - then what do we do?"

"For now, I don't think that it will be a problem." Draco said thoughtfully. "He seemed to be agreeable to stay at least until he has learned how to control his magic. For once his saviour complex works in our favour: he doesn't want to endanger anyone. Until he has learned how to harness it, he will stay, so we might have two or three weeks."  
And by then they needed to have won Harry over. Merlin, it was too short a time…

"I would speak with him."

Everyone turned towards the portraits again. In the previously empty rose garden now stood a young man, probably not much older than Blaise and Draco. One could probably say that his hair was red, though not the fiery Weasley-red but a multihued cascade of soft waves: copper and auburn, streaked with strands of dark gold and the colour of wheat in the sun. He wore a loose fitting, blue shirt that matched his eyes perfectly and leather pants, probably as a protection against the thorns of the roses.

"A kind offer, Ives, but you don't have to." Adler said, an unusual softness in his voice.

"And besides," Lucius said "you were rather reluctant to mate my ancestor yourself. It is too much of a risk to bring the two of you together. Mr Potter needs stability more than anything else right now. And he certainly doesn't need to be inspired by your rebelliousness."

"He needs someone to talk to, someone he can trust to answer his questions without some egoistical motive." Ives answered defiantly, a faint trace of red staining his cheeks.

"I would you refrained from insulting my husband, Lucius." And for the first time, there was something more than indifference in his voice, something undeniably dark and sinister. "I promise you, Ives will not influence Mr Potter or foment trouble, but he might help ground him a little bit. Why don't you bring both of our portraits to Italy and we will keep an eye on the young submissive."

"I don't think he will like Adler very much." Severus drawled.

"Fortunately, I was never dependant on the benevolence of others." Adler answered. "But where my husband goes, I will follow."

"Then by all means, send them to the manor." Blaise said a little bit impatiently. "Now Draco and I should take our leave; we don't want to keep Harry waiting after all."

"We will keep the connection open, should we have questions." Draco said, but privately he didn't think that they would take the portraits or their parents up on the offer. Harry was too unusual for them to be of much use and they didn't know anything about him.  
No, Harry was Blaise's and his challenge to rise to.

"I will send you that spying potion also, in case he gets lost." Severus said. With Potter's heightened magical strength he might detect normal tracking charms, but the spying potion was veritably undetectable.

"Thank you, Severus." Draco gave him a curt nod. Then the both of them took their leave.  



	10. A Forbidden Letter

Despite his exhaustion, Harry hadn't slept very much the previous night, plagued by nightmares as he had been. They were not ghost images of the war and the friends he had lost in it as many would naturally be prone to assume. Those had never been much of a problem for him during the last two months, only disturbing his rest when he had thought much about the victims of the war during his waking hours.  
It was because he hadn't been helpless and because he had prevailed over his enemies, Hermione had said with a shrug of her shoulders as if it was totally normal and understandable that he was not traumatized by what he had been through while so many around them fought to keep the memories from ruling their behaviour and their life. Hermione always had an answer.

She herself sometimes dreamt of the torture she had endured at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange in Malfoy Manor, he knew that. Ron had told him. Hell, _Ron_ sometimes dreamt of the screams they had heard from the dungeons, where he and Harry had been unable - helpless - to stop it all and save their friend.

But no, it was nothing like that; he had dreamt that he hadn't regained his magic and that he had to leave the Wizarding World because of it. Somehow all the changes of his body had been reverted, he didn't know why or how, but he hadn't even thought about it then. Logic, as is known, is not important for the dreamer. In any case, he had been sent back to the Dursleys, abandoned by his friends, left alone once more with people who hated him.  
The knowledge that Dudley didn't hate him anymore (he wasn't so sure about Petunia and Vernon, you hate what you fear after all) and that his friends would not even abandon him if he ever should lose his ability to perform magic had come only after Harry had awoken. Then the idea that had scared him so much during his sleep had seemed so ridiculous: Ron and Hermione leaving him with the Dursleys, breaking off all contact… god, after all they had been through they'd never do that to him, it was unthinkable. Whatever happened, he knew he'd always have them. But his magic, Merlin, his magic! He wouldn't have survived losing that.

He hadn't lost it, though, and he was still in the Wizarding World. Somewhere. His best friends were out there and probably already searching for him.

But all that knowledge was unimportant while he laid there in a foreign bed, looking up at the blurry image of the fresco in which the birds just started to flutter around and greet the new day, while all around him foreign smells and sounds permeated the night air. The soft murmuring of the rolling waves and the salty freshness the wind brought to his window only emphasized it: he didn't belong here.  
Yes, he knew what Zabini and Malfoy had said, he knew that he might not be safe, not in Italy and not in England. Yet a little, vicious voice in the back of his mind asked persistently why he should believe them. For some reason they wanted him to stay in the manor - maybe they intended to mate him, maybe not. How was he to know? From an objective point of view there were certainly some benefits to such a union for a family whose name had been tainted by fighting on the losing side of the war… it could all be a lie to keep him here.

No, he couldn't trust anyone within this blasted house. He needed to leave, find his way back to England and his friends and sort this out, even with his somewhat dubious control over his magic. If anyone would be able to deal with that it were the two persons who had stood at his side during the war. Malfoy and Zabini in contrast had proven that they didn't know how to handle the situation: all they had done so far was making his magic lash out, who said it wouldn't happen again? Who guaranteed him that they would be able to help him regain control over it?  
At least with Hermione and Ron there was trust and honesty and maybe it was naïve of him, but they had faced worse situations in the past and had always come out on top, he just _knew_ that the three of them could manage the unthinkable again.

But how was he to leave the Manor without help and return to his friends? He had no wand to apparate away, and several House Elves had the order to keep him within the wards. And dammit, He knew just how powerful they could be. It hadn't been so long ago that Harry had seen them in battle after all.

By now he certainly wouldn't be able to use the floo connection any longer and he couldn't even approach the wards without getting stunned and dragged right back.

Brooms came to his mind then: maybe if he could find a fast broom and flew high enough right through the wards, the House Elves wouldn't dare to stun him for fear of hurting him. Harry thought he might manage to orientate himself well enough: although Zabini's explanation the day before had told him nothing at all about where he was - how was he to know the names of coasts in Italy? - he could deduce from the position of the sun that he was somewhere on the south-western side of Italy. He could probably follow the coast north and then he would have to cross France. In the best case scenario he might be able to find the Delacours, he knew where Fleur's family lived after all. She had shown him the location of her hometown on a map once. If he had understood it correctly, it was something like Hogsmeade, an all-wizarding village.  
As a wizard he should be able to find it…

But there were many ifs and buts in that plan: what if the Elves willingly took the risk of hurting him? What if Zabini or Malfoy had ordered them to do whatever it took to keep him within Lanai Manor? As much as he wanted to escape at the moment, he didn't want to die. He wasn't that desperate yet.  
And aside from the dangers and the fact that Harry didn't know where to even get a broom, his hosts had wings and probably knew how to use them - in contrast to him. It would not be difficult for them to follow him, even if Harry should destroy all other brooms in the manor. Or maybe it would be difficult? How fast were Vykélari?  
He would have to find that out first, and that meant staying in the manor for some time. An idea he was not really fond of at the moment.

Wandless apparition then? Yeah, talking of danger; he really didn't feel like getting splinched somewhere…

No, it seemed that for the moment he need to play by the rules and bide his time.

_He needed to sail close to the wind._

"What are you allowed to do?" Harry whispered into the early morning air, worrying his lower lips. What had Zabini said? God, remembering the moment was more difficult than he would have thought with his memory clouded by anger. But Zabini had been infuriating when he had given all those orders…  
"You are not allowed a wand and you are not to go near the wards." He recited thoughtfully, his voice still a little bit tight: who did that Slytherin think he was, ordering him around like that?

But there had been more. Harry almost hadn't listened to it at the time, too furious with the rules that had been imposed on him. Yes: otherwise he was to be treated like a Zabini by all the House Elves; so the question was: what was a grounded Zabini allowed to do?

Suddenly, Harry grinned a smile as narrow as his eyes. If the prophet won't come to the mountain, the mountain must go to the prophet: as he couldn't just go and get help, the help needed to come to him, and now that he thought about it, _that_ was nowhere near as difficult to achieve as an escape…

But he would need to be able to _see_ , and so as much as he didn't want to, in order to escape he had to accept his new eyes, at least temporarily. Once he had his glasses back he could always transfigure them back and never have to deal with them again.  
Steeling himself, Harry willed his vision to change to that overwhelming richness of detail and colour and just like that it did. Gazing up, he watched as the blurry image of the fresco became sharper, until he could make out the outlines clearly and then he could see every unevenness of the ceiling it had been drawn upon, every line of each brushstroke. The colours themselves didn't change much; it seemed that additional colour had not been part of the paint used for this fresco, and for that, Harry was glad.  
Within seconds, it was over and in contrast to the day before, Harry only felt a slight fatigue, nothing that would hinder his body or mind to function.

Now he could begin!

With renewed enthusiasm, Harry climbed out of the ridiculously large bed and walked around it towards the curved foot bench. Like the previous morning he found a pile of clothing, which his two captors had laid out for him when they had accompanied him back to his rooms the previous evening. Harry had been too tired to mind much and hadn't even complained when Blaise had vanished behind the curtain to the side of the king size bed and returned with a fresh pyjama which he had deposited on the bed. It seemed they didn't trust him to dress properly and Harry had thought he should maybe tell them that there was a reason why he had been so tastelessly clothed during their school days, but really, the Dursleys were none of their business; and he had still been so very tired.

Although not tired enough that Harry hadn't wanted to ask for a moment about who had changed his clothes after he had been brought to Lanai Manor, but while his sluggish mind had still dithered, torn between embarrassment and indignation, Zabini had spoken up and made the decision for him. The Italian had explained about the suite of rooms Harry had been given and told him not to hesitate to call upon the House Elves, should he have need of anything. With that, both he and Draco bade him goodnight and left him alone.

Alone in a room that was far too large for his comfort.

He had stood there for a while, watching the slight gap in the curtains opposite of his bed, through which the two Slytherins had left. Then with a sigh, he had taken the pyjama and crossed that very curtain and into the living area behind it. He hadn't taken much notice of the room then, only interested in getting into the bathroom on the other side of it to take a quick shower and then return to fall into his bed.

And that he had done and nothing more.

Now he swiftly dressed into the light brown pants and the black, short-sleeved shirt waiting for him on the foot bench, wondering not for the first time how the hell the two Slytherins had managed to get all those clothes that fast. They fit him perfectly; maybe he would have to ask them.

But for now he would concentrate on putting one over on them…

Not bothering to check his appearance in the large mirror at one side of the bedroom, Harry pushed the curtain to the living area aside and crossed the room swiftly, not even appreciating for a moment the wonderful view of the wide windows, or the warm décor and the furnishings that looked as chic as they seemed comfortable. Not even the fireplace that only held illusionary fire anyway and didn't even possess a floo. He strode right up to the pair of doors on the other side, from which one lead to the bathroom and the other - as Zabini had explained in an embedded sentence - to a study.

Harry told himself that he was not nervous as he opened the door to the latter one. After all it wasn't as if he was afraid of his captors per se: they hadn't resorted to violence even when he had tried to flee, even when he had attacked Zabini and Harry was rather sure that he was safe from them for the time being. But if they found out what he was about to do, they would take away more of his freedom until he wouldn't be able to move anywhere without supervision, and his chances of escape would be drastically reduced.

In comparison to all the other rooms, the study was rather plain: warm peach-coloured, marbled walls and a white ceiling, the exact same colour of the living area, and high but relatively narrow windows (only in comparison to the wide ones in the other rooms) that were partly veiled by pale curtains. Some kind of plant stood in front of each window, but Harry had no idea what they were. Maybe Neville would have known; no, _surely_ , Neville would have known, thought with a fond smile.

The desk stood parallel to the windows, a light table with no ornaments whatsoever. The dark table top was firmly joined with the wall unit at the side of the room and was empty aside from the silver sculpture of a Pegasus and a crystalline ink well and a white quill. It didn't even have any drawers. Harry frowned and walked round it, seating himself into the pale office chair, on which cushioning charms had been casted so skilfully that one had the impression of sinking into clouds.  
If the chairs at Hogwarts would have been anywhere near as comfortable, Harry thought, shaking his head slightly, the teachers would have had no chance of keeping their students awake.

Not letting himself be distracted for long, Harry opened the drawers of the wall unit, one after the other until he had found what he had searched for: letter paper; thick, gold-bordered, luxurious letter paper with a Pegasus embedded as a water mark.

Well, it was a bit snobbish, but it would do.

Quickly, he took out two of the papers, shut the drawer and laid them out in front of him. Then Harry opened the inkwell with the royal blue ink in it, that was probably some fancy custom-built model if he judged those purebloods correctly and took up the white quill.

He didn't hesitate for one moment as he wrote the first words.

-|-  
 _Dear Hermione, dear Ron,_

_I need your help…_  
-|-

 

And so Harry began what should become a momentous and consequential event during the unusual courtship that he was the centre of without even knowing it yet.

Once he had finished the letter and rolled up the papers, closing them with red sealing wax he had found in one of the drawers, he stood and clapped his hands.

This was the critical moment of his plan, the one he didn't know if it would succeed. He needed to get a house elf to send the letter away or give him access to an owl. If it refused, then Malfoy and Zabini would learn of it before he had had the chance to fulfil his plan and the constrictions that had been put upon him would be reinforced and tightened around him until there was no chance of escape. Harry took a deep, steadying breath just as a small house elf appeared in the study with a quiet pop, bowing lowly to him.

"Desidera? Signor Harry Potter, padroncino? Non riesci a dormire?"

Harry blinked at the little creature in front of him that was wrapped up in layers of a pale cloth with dark edging that had once probably been part of a discarded curtain. "Uh… do you speak English?"  
God, he hoped so…

The elf looked up at him, and nodded fiercely, sending its long ears flapping.  
"Naturalmente! Of course, young master Potter!"

"Good." Harry said and made an effort to sound nonchalant and imperious. "I need you to do something for me."

"Anything, master Harry Potter, sir! Giallina do anything." Almost Harry would have smiled at the eagerness in the elf's voice. How naïve they could be and yet so insightful at times.

"I need you to send a letter for me. I haven't been shown to the owlery yet." He hoped the elf would buy the impression that what he was doing was totally within his privileges, if only he managed to present himself confident enough... but it seemed to waver.

"Maybe master Harry Potter can wait for master Blaise?"

Oh shit. "He is still abed, isn't he?"  
The elf nodded, still looking unhappy.

"I don't want to disturb him, I think I did enough of that yesterday." He gave it a small smile. "And I'd like to settle this before breakfast."

"Giallina is not sure, master Potter. Giallina thinks she should wait for master Blaise. She will take the letter and send it after seeing master Blaise." Hopefully the little thing looked up at him.

Harry desperately tried to keep his heartbeat and breathing under control. Oh, Merlin, how he wished he didn't have to do that. "Is that how you would treat another Zabini?" He asked as sternly as he was able to, but he almost faltered when the large eyes became even larger and started to shine suspiciously. "Blaise ordered you to treat me like you would a Zabini! Do you want to go against the direct orders of the master of this house?"  
Inwardly Harry cringed as the small elf started to whine pitifully and pull at its bat-like ears violently until tears were streaking from its large eyes. "Stop that at once!" he ordered. "I don't want you to punish yourself further."

"But Giallina is a bad elf! Does master want Giallina to punish herself where the master can't see?"

" _No_! She…" Harry closed his eyes. Honestly, dealing with house elves could be trying sometimes. " _you_ are to send away this letter now, without delay. It is important."

"Yes, master Harry Potter! Giallina will do it right now." Harry sighed in relief as the elf held its hand out for the envelope.

"And afterwards I don't. Want. You. To punish. Yourself. Is that clear?"

Again the bat-like ears fluttered as the elf nodded fiercely.

"Good. Then be on your way."

And with a last "Yes, young master!" the small elf was gone.

Slowly, with a relieved sigh, Harry seated himself again on the comfortable office chair. He knew it was but a little victory, but he couldn't stop himself from grinning. He had lost a battle yesterday with the floo debacle, but that didn't mean he would lose the war.

* * *

  
If Harry's mood was suspiciously improved in comparison to the day before or if he seemed a little bit excited and nervous at the same time, when Blaise and Draco met him this morning, they didn't notice it, too busy to assess his lithe frame and his somewhat short stature. How much of that came from the mistreatment he had endured and how much was natural? Were his eyes so bad because he had been forced to spend much of his time in a small, ill-lit cupboard from such a tender age on?   
Would his body show scars from the beatings he had taken at the hands of his cousin?

If it did, Blaise and Draco would have them charmed away by a specialist and the muggle wouldn't live much longer…  
And by Morgaine's vengeful nature, if that dog had sunken its fangs into the flesh of the Gryffindor's body only once, Draco swore he would _skin_ the mutt and its owner alive!  
And then, then he would watch them burn.

He knew a dark curse that wizards had sometimes used in medieval times which would make a circular scission around the belly and back of the victim and then peel the skin upwards, severing it from the flesh up to just below the armpits. The skin would melt together above the head and the victim would suffocate in a bag of his own skin.

Rather painful but not that useful against a wizard or witch because even without a wand the victim's accidental magic would usually manage to free him or her before death occurred. But used against a muggle…

Of course such a method would normally be too crude and unsophisticated and way too messy for Draco and he had never even killed before, but what could he say? It was a good image at that moment.

Hopefully unaware of his line of thoughts, Harry interrupted them nonetheless as he spoke up, looking at him cautiously.  
"You're staring, Malfoy." It seemed to seriously unnerve him, more so than the day before. He was a little bit jittery, Draco thought, wondering what could have caused the change in behaviour overnight. Almost as if he was nervously waiting for something to happen…  
Maybe the notion of what Blaise and he could want from Harry was finally settling in after all. Though privately, Draco hoped that this wasn't the reason for his nervousness. After all he didn't want the prospect to frighten the young submissive.  
Draco gave him a small smile, meaning it to be reassuring. "I am sorry." He murmured, the teasing quality to his voice implying that his apology didn't have to be taken for one, if Harry didn't want to…  
It only served to unnerve and confuse the younger Vykélari further as it seemed. That was fine, Draco told himself, Harry would warm up to them in time.

"You agreed to call me Draco."

Harry stopped in between steps to glare at him. "Fine, Draco. But stop staring at me!"

Blaise chuckled lowly just as he held the door towards a dining room on the eastern side of the manor open for Harry and waved him through with a graceful hand gesture before following him.  
"He is staring, because you look beautiful." He offered, delighting in the indignantly embarrassed blush it got him and while his fiancé was still staring at their charge, proving that he was not at all sorry, he took Harry's hand and - despite the other's best attempts at pulling it away instantly, managed to press a light kiss onto the knuckles. Harry hissed and immediately snatched his hand away the moment the Italian released it. Even the skin on his ears and neck had flushed by now. Blaise never would have thought that he would find something like that adorable, but with Harry, it was.

"I'm not a girl! I don't even know if I believe you that I am what you say I am. So don't you treat me like one!"

Blaise chuckled lowly. "I assure you Harry, if you were a girl I would treat you rather differently. I am perfectly bent." With that he flashed a winning smile at their guest.

For a moment, Harry seemed to be imitating a carp, his mouth opening and closing in rapid succession, and he was doing a pretty good job of it, too, aside from his slightly flushing cheeks. But Draco's half-suppressed chuckle tore him from his stupor.  
"Well, I am not!" he spat, turning towards the round glass table in the middle of the room, that had an oversized black amphora as a base.

Silently Draco and Blaise watched the Gryffindor pull out one of the white leather chairs jerkily and sit down, the movements shouting the brunet's irritation out to the world in no uncertain manner.

Well, that was a problem… Draco and Blaise shared an alarmed glance as they approached the table also and seated themselves on the opposite side of Harry.  
"Harry," Draco started cautiously. "Are you really, absolutely, positively straight?"

"That isn't any of your business!" Harry growled with a pointed glare and grabbed a slice of ciabatta out of the silver, filigree breadbasket.  
Blaise shook his head. "I don't want a repeat performance of yesterday, but I have to say this: You won't be able to settle down with Ginevra Weasley or with any other woman. They will not let you."

"You mean _you_ won't let me." Harry said, not looking up from the ciabatta that he was currently soaking with honey. Idly Draco wondered if he should tell the brunet that the honey and the marmalade were meant to go with the cornetto and the cheese and jam were intended for the ciabatta. Really, to slather a slice of such a fluffy bread with the sticky, half-liquid pine honey … he just knew a cleaning spell would be in order afterwards…

"No, Harry, every dominant Vykélari between 17 and 50 will not allow you to. And while most maybe wouldn't try to force your hand, there are enough who would. If you married a woman, be assured she wouldn't survive the first week of your marriage."

Finally Harry looked up, the redness draining from his cheeks. "What?" He whispered.

Draco held his gaze. He knew that although Harry was shocked to the core by his statement, he was now enough in control of his emotions that he would search his eyes for a sign that Draco was lying. If he looked away, Harry would not believe him, and he _needed_ to believe him. It would do none of them good if they coddled the brunet. "They would murder her, Harry, in order to get to you. I'm sorry, but it had to be said."

Harry's eyes seemed to tear up but Draco couldn't be sure, as fast as the Gryffindor turned his head away from them. But he heard him swallow audibly and his breathing hitched.

Two years ago he would have sneered at the other teen, would have taunted him gleefully for the weakness he was showing. He would have taken the image of the memory and stored it into the mental file he kept on each of his enemies, waiting to be used later, when it would be beneficial.  
Now, with the prospect of having the younger Vykélari as a mate, a real mate, and with Severus's words still haunting him, he couldn't do it. There was no logical explanation, nothing that would have sounded reasonable to him anyway and yet ... he just couldn't.

But he had no idea what to do either.

Next to him, Blaise slid out of his chair and approached the younger Vykélari. Ignoring the unimpressive glare of swimming eyes, he gently turned the other's chair around to face him and hunkered down in front of the brunet.  
"It won't come to that. If you don't want to mate, you don't have to, you will always find a safe spot in Lanai Manor." Reassuringly the tanned Italian laid one of his hands on Harry's knee and squeezed gently.  
"Don't think of it now and don't pressure yourself. You've been through so much... let Draco and me show you around the Manor today and then, if you are not too tired, we could go swimming - either in the pool or the sea, whatever you prefer. Tomorrow you should be rested enough that we can explore your magic together and maybe fly a bit. You have no obligations here, Harry. Try to enjoy it and take all the time you need to familiarize yourself with your new abilities."

Harry didn't look at them as he nodded his consent, his jaw clenched. Draco watched him silently, knowing that the Gryffindor was only further slipping away from them, thinking that they lied, but not knowing how to reach him.  
Maybe Ives would be able to convince the obstinate Gryffindor, and if not, well, there was always veritaserum, even though that might lead to rather awkward situations if Harry exploited the chance to ask them any questions he could while they were unable to lie to him; he'd rather use that option as a last resort…

* * *

  
They stayed true to their word: after an opulent breakfast, Blaise and Draco spend the forenoon showing Harry around the manor. Blaise was rather taken up in his explanations, telling the other two teens of this event or that or simply made them aware of some detail or the other.  
The manor that had been in the hands of Vykélari for ages had been build to accommodate their needs or offer certain luxuries that would not be needed by normal wizards. That ranged from frescos which had been worked out with a special kind of paint that showed ultraviolet over wide balconies that would allow a Vykélari to land and start from comfortably even with their huge wingspan, and to walls that had been spelled soundproofed. When Harry asked why anyone would need that, Draco explained that most Vykélari tended to keep their improved visual, acoustic and tactile senses permanently.  
Since they weren't linked with a physical feature that any other wizard would be able to see and were an immense advantage during a sudden attack, a duel or simply to take notice of things that weren't meant to be noticed (here Draco smirked and winked at Harry conspiratorially, who merely was reminded of Fred and George and their use of extendable ears and thought that maybe they would be able to hit it off with Draco if not for their tiresome family feud…), most Vykélari accepted the minor disadvantages that came with oversensitive senses.

At last Blaise led the way to the roof of the building where a narrow spiral staircase lead to a spacious roof garden. It had a spectacular view over the coast and the cyan water that slowly blended into the dark blue of the open ocean. And to the eastern side ascended a hillocky landscape behind which the Apennines would be visible on clear days, as Blaise promised him, his dark eyes shining in a contagious way that made Harry forget himself and smile for a moment, before he remembered where he was and who he was with. Yet though Blaise continued with his monologue, still completely unaware, Harry's eyes met Draco's for but a moment and Draco smiled back gently, genuinely and Harry just knew his school nemesis had seen…  
He looked away quickly again, his heart beating a little bit faster.

"This roof garden has been used by my father's ancestor's for generations to teach newly fledged Vykélari how to fly. I myself learned it here, too. My cousin taught me and he was also the one who guided me through my transformation."  
"Can you imagine soaring towards the sun, when it is setting there over the endless water, not on a broom but on your own wings? I wasn't strong enough to really fly at first and just floated downwards until I landed with a splash. I swear my cousin had way too much fun on my expense."

"Was it…" Harry fell silent, unsure whether to ask.

Blaise and Draco turned to him, blinking against the sun. "Was it what?"

"Nothing… It's just, you know, it was … really painful…" he shrugged, dropping his gaze along with his voice.

Draco took a step towards him and tilted his head. Was that one of the reasons why Harry felt so reluctant to accept his inheritance? Was he … _traumatized_ by his transformation?  
"I don't know, Harry. Normally you would have been given a drug prior to the transformation that would have made you insensitive to the pain. But as no one knew that you would transform … was it that bad?"

Harry shrugged, looking towards the sea helplessly. "It was like a very strong, localized Cruciatus, you know? And I … I just … it took away my magic and my vision and everything else … and I just didn't know what was happening … I thought that maybe I was dead." He muttered at last, somewhat embarrassed.

"Merlin, Harry!" Blaise whispered and took a step forward, wishing to envelop the Gryffindor in his arms but not knowing if he'd be welcome to do so after Harry had spurned all bodily contact with them. After being imprisoned in a cupboard and then a room he had now been imprisoned in silence and numbness.

"I'm sorry that your transformation went like that. It's … meant to be a joyous event. My parents were so proud when I did, I … I think they were not sure I would be powerful enough." Draco murmured, his guilt pushing him towards honesty. He hadn't thought about what that experience might have done to the submissive, not for a moment. He had just expected Harry to pick himself up and go on, like he always did, had expected him to fight them and with time, to give in to them.  
How naïve he had been.  
He licked his suddenly dry lips. "Would it help you if you could speak with someone who has … been through something similar?"

"What? No … no, no. I'm fine!" Harry turned towards them and then he blinked in rapid succession as if he had noticed only now that they were even here.

Silence spread between the three of them, not awkward, nor comfortable, only full of unspoken thoughts and regrets and unsaid apologies.

Finally Blaise nodded. "If you say so."  
A silent communication passed between Draco and Blaise and the decision not to press further. One day the smaller brunet would open up to them and when he would tell them his secrets of his own free will … that was a goal worth pursuing. Another challenge of another kind.

"Come," Draco waved the Gryffindor to follow. "Let us have the house elves prepare us something for lunch and go swimming. You'll like it: the sea is warm and all cyan blue…"  
He stopped as Harry tilted his head, his brow knitted in obvious bewilderment over the blonde's behaviour. Well that might be somewhat deserved.

But Draco just smiled. Maybe this would become a difficult long-time project just like that damned vanishing cabinet; but this time, he was sure, the result would be much more satisfying.

* * *

  
Soon they rushed their charge to his chambers and Draco vanished behind the curtain to the side of Harry's bed to choose a bathing suit for him.

As Harry found out, the curtain hid an oversized walk-in closet, its walls covered with dark wardrobes and as soon as Draco and Blaise left him alone to give him some privacy and he started to change, a set of five frameless, high mirrors surrounded him in a lose circle, turning and dipping with his head movements just so that he was able to examine himself from every angle.  
It kind of freaked him out a bit and Harry hurried to finish, his face as red as a radish. He had always found himself too thin, too small and although the muscles of his body were defined, he didn't think that they looked at all … _impressive_. He was an endurance athlete, trained by Quidditch and war and his body bore testimony to that. Draco and Blaise were both taller and broader and he just knew it would make him even more self-conscious.

But once he stepped onto the terrace where they had had lunch the day before and met the two Slytherins in their tight, square cut bathing suits, his mind went too blank to be self-conscious at all.  
Up close, half-naked and bathed in the golden light of the early afternoon sun, they reminded him of an image of Michelangelo's David, or at least Blaise did with his locks. Sure, his face was a little bit more … angular, his hair not as curly, his body definitely darker and he wore that dark vine red bathing suit that was … too tight to hide anything. But there were similarities that made his whole body tighten…  
And Draco, though his built was a little bit slighter, his skin was as pale as the marble that the famous sculpture had been made of. It glowed, too, as if covered in lotion and it was, probably: with such pale skin the blonde would surely need sun blocker after all.  
Harry really tried to keep his eyes away from the blue-grey suit that hugged his slender hip like a second skin. But his well-muscled stomach and chest were not much better either, and the smile that just tugged at his lips at seeing Harry, _him_ , certainly wasn't. He was running out of options to look at…

He knew that he hadn't lied earlier: he wasn't bent, he certainly liked women, too, and he had never been much interested in men before, but dammit, could anyone fault him if the vision in front of him made his stomach do summersaults and his pulse flutter? And something else swell traitorously…

"Are you ready?"

"Huh?" God, he sounded like such a fool.

"Are you ready to go?" Draco repeated, though he tried to hide his amusement. He was too relieved and pleased that Harry seemed to be attracted to him and Blaise despite of his earlier claim to be straight to destroy it now with ill-placed insensitivity.

Harry nodded quickly, hoping the two Slytherins would blame the heat for his flushed skin. At least they didn't make any derogatory comment…  
But he could feel their eyes wandering over his body appreciatively and rather self-consciously he put his arms around his naked chest. They might be handsome, very handsome even, but he was rather uncomfortable with all the attention. In the past it had always been him who had had to do the pursuing, not that he had been very good at the whole seduction thing, but still …

Demonstratively he tugged in his chin and walked past the two Slytherins towards the stone path leading down the garden terraces towards the beach down below.  



	11. Concessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Firefly and littlechinesedoll, for commenting! And thanks for the kudos!

After Blaise and Draco had secured their wands in holsters at their forearms, the three of them made their way down the several terraces that formed the extensive gardens of Lanai Manor; past patios that snuggled into the earth and the plants as if they had always been there and grown with them, almost blending into the nature. Most often the seating arrangements were wrought of intertwined living plants or carefully hewn into larger boulders; white or fawn or light blue cushions seemed to invite the onlooker for a rest and the little rivulet of a stream danced along downwards next to them in a glittering, silver ribbon, splashing serenely and sometimes crossing their path, a quiet companion on their way to the beach.  
Harry had no eyes for the beauty around him, though, he was too much aware of the two pairs of eyes that hadn't left his body at all (more like his backside), of that he was sure. He was still hugging himself as he tried to ignore the two Slytherins to the best of his ability - which was a futile endeavour at best - because if he didn't do it, he would have no idea whatsoever about what to do with his arms and hands; and he kept his eyes trained on the narrow but well-kept path of pale stone slabs, because he knew he might stumble and fall otherwise and he really didn't need or want one of his captors to rush to his _rescue_ …

Therefore he was more than relieved when the smooth slabs of the path finally vanished beneath a heavy coat of crystalline sand and the beach unfurled before him like a blanket, encapsulated by a towering rock formation to the left and a short, thinly wooded tongue of land to the right of the small bight that surely didn't measure more than 200 metres in length. The water that greeted them with a merry, faint rumbling of waves that had been caused by the light ocean breeze, was clear and turquoise and seemed to beg them closer as it gently lapped against the almost white sand glistening in the sun. Sand that felt warm and fine-grained under Harry's feet and he curled his toes into it, enjoying the feeling as it moved beneath his feet and between his toes.  
He had never been away from the British Islands before and this … this was peaceful and serene and beautiful and exotic and … and as he looked at the bight and the endless sea beyond it he found he really loved that cerulean blue.

Harry was still taking in the breathtaking sight when a shadow rushed into his field of vision. Instinctively his body went into battle mode and he started to recoil from the possible threat and turn towards it while ducking down to present less of a target. He had barely begun to execute the movements when it registered with him that it was only Zabini sprinting past him and towards the water, his feet digging into the sand with each strong step.  
Then suddenly the dark skinned Italian jumped, propelled himself into the air and a mass of feathers erupted so quickly from his back that it was impossible to follow or understand the process that caused two gigantic wings to carry him upwards, not much, barely three metres at best. Harry gasped at the sight and took a step back, bumping against another muscled chest.  
"Careful!" Malfoy murmured as he steadied Harry with his hands on his upper arm. He was grateful that the other man refrained from a more intimate touch, that he didn't try to lay his arms around his chest and that he let go after but a moment, but Harry felt unable to turn around with the transfixing sight of those enormous copper and bronze and golden wings beating strongly in front of him.

Dear Merlin, they were gorgeous and the way that each feather shifted with each movement, completely in tune with their owner's body was nothing less than amazing. Harry had never even seen his own wings fully, only a part of them the one time in his room - no, the room that Zabini and Malfoy had given him - and then only while they had surrounded him like the cocoon of a silkworm…  
He had always thought that flying on a broom was the closest there was to freedom and it was exhilarating to sense the magic-imbued polished wood beneath his body and feeling so close to it that it was as if he were a part of that magical flying tool for the duration of some precious seconds. But seeing Zabini now, completely in harmony with his wings, he knew that this would never even compare to flying on a broom and he might be damned, but he yearned to be able to fly like that even while he yearned to be just a human once more and the battle between those desires tore at him mercilessly.

Longingly he watched the dark skinned Italian soar for some precious moments in the lightly, salty ocean breeze and then there was a barely perceptible shift in the position of the long feathers and Zabini pulled his appendages close and tipped over into the ocean, some fifty metres away from the shore and with barely a splash at all he vanished into the blue and suddenly, Harry found himself able to breathe again.

"Show-off!" Draco shouted next to him, one hand at his mouth and forming a speaking trumpet, uncaring that his fiancé was still beneath the water surface and therefore unable to hear him. But he grinned as he turned to Harry and shrugged.

"He does that." Was his only explanation, the tenderness in his voice a little bit surprising for the younger Gryffindor. So far the two Slytherins hadn't been very affectionate towards each other in his company, too much of their focus had rested on him and Harry had somehow just assumed that it was the nature of their relationship, that they weren't really in love; after all, everything the Slytherins usually did seemed to serve a specific purpose, didn't it? But hearing the tenderness with which Malfoy spoke of his lover and remembering the way that Zabini had protected the blonde in the hospital without hesitation when Harry had bitten him made him reconsider.  
Maybe the two of them aspired to more than a convenience marriage after all.

"Come on, Harry, let's join him now, or he will swim out so far, we won't ever manage to catch up with him until he comes back." Again an almost gentle smile tugged at Malfoy's lips as he turned to walk towards the sea, his lower legs pushing waves of water. "He does that, too."

With a calming breath, Harry swallowed all his objections and followed Malfoy's pale figure into the water. But he couldn't brush off the feeling of being pushed into a corner; vaguely he wondered if he shouldn't have managed to get used to that by now, and yet…  
"You know, Malfoy…"

The blonde looked back at him over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, and the grey eyes flashed disapprovingly.

"Fine," Harry snapped, " _Draco_ then. But you know bribery will get you nowhere with me, right?"  
Immediately after the words had left his mouth, Harry regretted having spoken them. He had wanted to keep low and bide his time, had wanted to lull his captors into a false sense of security until the rare and unexpected chance at escape presented itself… but they kept unbalancing him and it was just so easy to fall back into his used patterns where the blonde, his former school enemy, was concerned.  
As Malfoy turned around to face him with an almost curious expression while he continued to walk backwards, Harry knew he couldn't back down anymore.

"What bribery?"

Harry huffed. Wasn't that obvious?  
"Bringing me here, trying to charm me with all that luxury, from my rooms to the food and this … all this…" Harry waved at the nature around him that looked as perfectly peaceful and gorgeous as any postcard he had seen before. Why else were they trying so hard to enchant him with the grandeur that he could have permanently in his life if he only gave himself.

Infuriatingly, Malfoy regarded him with a genuinely amused expression now, as if he found his naivety endearing. "You think this was bribery?"

"Wasn't it?" Harry countered challengingly, not really understanding when Draco flashed him a brilliant smile, his eyes gleaming. He didn't know that the blonde relished in those moments of what he believed to be inconsequential banter.

"In fact, sweet, it wasn't. Did it ever occur to you that maybe we did nothing but be the hosts to an honoured guest? Nothing we gave you was really that extraordinary."  
By now they were far enough in the water that it reached their hips, lapping gently at their skin, pleasantly cool and distracting. Draco idly let his arms move around his body in an implied circle, the tips of his fingers grazing the water surface just barely so, as he watched Harry curiously.

"I'm not your guest, though." The brunet pressed out, and really wasn't that the core of all the disputes between him and the two dominants? That he was indeed their captive and had no choice at all, no matter if it concerned staying at the manor or interacting with them or having them teach him.

The blonde lowered his gaze with a tiny, absent-minded smile. "No, I guess you are not. But since nothing here will be to your detriment, why don't you try to enjoy it?"

Because all of their gifts were not given without an ulterior motive, Harry wanted to snap at him. If not for his unexpected inheritance he wouldn't even be here, hell he would probably not even be on speaking terms with the two Slytherins. And the problem was that he knew just what that ulterior motive was and it was nothing that he felt able to give. It was as if they had presented him with a formal contract where they were to give him whatever luxury they could and in return he was to give himself and he felt as if he would have to, if he accepted their poisonous gifts.

"I can't give you _anything_ in return."  
From the way Harry emphasized it, Malfoy couldn't misinterpret the meaning of those words. But the blonde only tilted his head back for a moment, eyes directed into the sky. One again Harry marvelled how pale those eyes were in such an angle, seemingly completely without an iris. It was rather fitting for demon, he guessed. "And I told you time and time again that we don't expect you to. If you just can't accept it as a gift, if you really need to, you may see it as an offer of amends for your not quite voluntary stay."  
And then he looked at him as if it was a most gracious offer.

Harry blinked, outraged and stunned at the same time. The bastard didn't even _pretend_ to be sorry at all for robbing Harry of his freedom! "You are such a bloody asshole, Malfoy!"  
And with that Harry turned and made his way towards the beach again, angrily splashing through the salty water, hating the fact that it gave him so much resistance as if the ocean itself wanted him to remain.

"Stop Harry!" Malfoy called out behind him, his voice tense, but with a pleading note to it. "Please stop!"

His whole body tense, Harry obliged the Slytherin and looked back to where the blonde still stood, hip deep in the cerulean sea, frowning at Harry in confusion and irritation, one hand ruffling through his normally impeccable hair in obvious frustration. "What did I say now?"

Harry huffed and his mouth tightened to a thin line, more annoyed now that the bastard really didn't seem to know what was bothering him than with the earlier comment. "You just don't get it!"

"What?" The blonde exclaimed, taking a step towards the Gryffindor but stopping immediately when Harry held up a hand warningly, telling him to stop.

"You are such a bloody, insensitive prick!"

Malfoy growled lowly, now clearly irritated himself. "What the hell did I do? I tried everything to reassure you and you just…"

"You don't even _care_ that all this is against my will!"  
Harry's shout echoed through the bight like the shockwave of a powerful explosion.

* * *

  
Draco gulped and blinked, too much taken aback to do anything but stare at the seething Gryffindor in front of him, watching the way his fists clenched and unclenched in rapid succession at his side. The way the tendons in his throat became visible as he tensed his jaw and how the green eyes seemed so intent on burning him alive. It was painfully obvious that Harry was about to bolt again, not because of fear or insecurity but because of hot, bitter rancour and rage.  
An ice-cold barbwire seemed to curl around and into his intestines at that thought and slowly he became aware of just how much they had screwed up so far.

From the beginning on Severus had been right: Harry felt as if they had bullied him into staying, and he was right of course since he really didn't want to be here and whatever they did, whatever they gave him would not placate him in the least. He had disregarded his godfather's opinion because he had thought that the man was too biased by his hate and now it was costing Blaise and him.

"I would… You should know that if it had been possible at all, Blaise and I would not have brought you here against your will."

"So you keep telling me." It somehow sounded wrong when Harry was sneering. He wanted the forgiving, annoyingly sympathetic man back who even defended his enemies in court and had returned his wand to him, even though he didn't have to do it.

"We wouldn't have!" No, he'd rather courted the Gryffindor properly like any pureblood would have done; he would have taken him on night flights along the coast of England, the pounding sea and thundering waves beneath them while they soared close to the chalk cliffs under the stars, weaving streams of colourful magic into the darkness. He would have showered him with gifts, magical and beautiful and so rich that it would have taken Harry's breath away and made his eyes gleam like emeralds in adoration, he would have protected him and been so forthcoming and gentle, he'd befriended that horrible weasel and the beaver and shown Harry how much he wanted him, wanted this to work and …

Oh, god.

Almost, Draco succumbed to the need of burying his face in his hands and groan in mortification. He was _displaying_ , like a bird showing its brilliantly coloured feathers and even dancing for its chosen. How utterly _embarrassing_!  
Blaise would have to be made aware of that, they would have to watch out for themselves … Draco didn't want to subdue and practically enslave the Gryffindor, but he didn't want to be enslaved either by the force of their instincts, and from what he had just felt mere seconds ago, that was a terrifyingly real possibility.

He managed to recover enough and in time to form at least a coherent sentence, even if he had to look away. "If we would have approached you in England and given you all the space you desire, someone else would have taken you away. And that … that might have been much worse … for you."

"And you expect me to believe that? You are lying, you've always been good in your scheming and…"

That was enough. Harry might have the right to be angry with them, but he had no right to insult him like that. "I am not lying! Do you want me to take veritaserum?" He asked challengingly. "I would if that was what it took for you to believe us."  
Draco locked gazes with the brunet, engaging him in a staring contest and he felt oddly reminded of the times they had faced each other in the corridors of Hogwarts. He found he didn't like the analogy. "I would. Just say the word!"

Harry's mouth fell open in surprise and he stared at Draco apprehensively, shaken, as if a major detail of his world picture had just proven to be nothing more than a well-cast illusion. And Draco took hope the longer the silence spread between them. It made him believe that Harry was well aware of what a concession the Slytherin was making: the truth serum would not only give him the possibility to draw every single secret from his former enemy, it would leave him almost mindless and helpless before him.

The Gryffindor looked away, unable to hold his intense gaze for another second, but at least he didn't seem inclined to run any more.

He wasn't sure how much longer they would have stayed like that; it already felt like half an eternity as it was, when he heard Blaise coming up behind him, the water splashing around him as he walked towards them and already he felt more secure as he leaned towards the shoulder he knew would be there.  
Immediately a strong, warm hand gently stroked over his naked lower back. "What happened?"

From the way that Blaise spoke, mildly curious and a little bit impatient, Draco knew that he hadn't heard Harry's earlier shout, probably still diving in the salty wetness. He turned his head slightly to cast a quick glance at his dark skinned fiancé out of the corner of his eye, flashing him a warning of sorts before he answered as calmly as he could. "I asked Harry if he wanted to question us with veritaserum."

They had talked about that briefly last night and agreed that they would only use the truth serum as a last resort, because there were certain dangers to it and none of them would be comfortable to leave themselves so vulnerable and open to the Gryffindor. And even now all of Draco's instincts screamed at him to pull back the offer.  
That he was using it nonetheless would tell Blaise more efficiently just what the situation had deteriorated to than any other explanation ever could. Sure enough, Draco felt his lover's chest stop moving and his hand froze against his skin for a moment before it resumed to rub slowly over his back as if the Italian had needed to remind his body forcefully to continue working.  
But he stayed silent next to him, seemingly unaffected as he waited for the submissive to answer.

It didn't take long before Harry raised his head and Draco idly thought that if he had still had those gorgeous green feathers, they would have risen with it to adorn the black shock of hair with an emerald crown and make the Gryffindor appear taller than he actually was. He had found that endlessly endearing.  
"I want Hermione or Ron to tell me that." He said with a coldly calculative expression on his delicate face. "I will believe them."

Draco worried his lower lip and glanced over at his fiancé, since it was Blaise's home.  
But they should have known that Harry would ask for that at one point or the other, after all there was probably no one Harry trusted more; Draco doubted that even Harry's now former girlfriend Ginevra Weasley shared such a deep bond with the Saviour of the Wizarding World as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.  
It was a logical demand, too: by now, Granger would have acquired all the information she could possibly get and aside from giving Harry the pure facts, he would trust her and Weasley to consider the dangers very carefully, balance reasons and then advise him to the best of their knowledge and belief. Something he didn't trust Draco and Blaise to do at the moment.  
But if they let him speak with his friends, the consequences were not assessable at all. Maybe they were reasonable enough and warned him to stay at the manor but maybe they would aim for the opposite and Granger would manage to find a way for Harry to escape and convince him to do so.

In any case the fact remained that if they didn't find a way for such a conversation to occur, the submissive would turn away from them for sure. Because this was also a test for Draco and Blaise and if they didn't pass it, their chances with the young Vykélari were forfeited.

There really was no choice at all and so Blaise simply nodded as if there had never been a question whether or not Harry would be able to contact his friends. "Okay."

"Okay?" Harry repeated, more than a little bit surprised and wary at the easy victory. He really hadn't expected them to relent, not that fast, not without a fight.

"Yes, of course." Blaise smiled indulgently and laid his arm around Draco's shoulder, squeezing shortly to reassure the blonde that he knew what he was doing. "I will arrange for a meeting. Let us say the day after tomorrow?"

Warily Harry nodded and Draco and Blaise could see from the resolve in his expression that he would only believe them when he actually saw Ron and Hermione in front of him. That was fine, as long as he gave them that chance.

"Good" Blaise continued completely unperturbed. He merely grasped Draco's hand and pulled him backwards while he fixed Harry with a playful glance in a vague attempt of saving the mood "Now, do you want to come swimming?"

* * *

  
Although Harry had again been tense around them at first, and their conversations awkward at best, the rest of the day had done them much good and in the end it had even been rather enjoyable .

They had swum out rather far, even leaving the bight itself and Draco had casted a rather useful charm on Harry's eyes that erected an invisible barrier in front of them to keep the salt water away and reminded Harry of swim goggles, just without the bothering pressure sores and with a much larger field of vision. Another bubble soon encompassed his nose and mouth; it would always be filled with fresh air, as Draco assured him, and would enable him to breathe underwater. It was also less confusing than a complete bubble-head charm since it wouldn't distort the view underwater due to the moving and irregular surface of the bubble.

They had dived a few metres down to a rock formation at the ground of the sea that was overgrown with colourful corals and sponges and it was as if everywhere Harry looked he saw something moving: sea snails in the oddest shapes, jelly fishes that Blaise made him avoid, and a wide variety of other fishes that Harry had never seen before.  
Most of them the Slytherins insisted he not touch, not that he would have.

In the silence and tranquillity of the scenery it had been easy for Harry to momentarily forget about his dispute with the two Slytherins, especially when he saw how happy and serene and comfortable Blaise looked while he waved for Harry or Draco to look at something he found particularly beautiful or interesting. Draco would then always smile so affectionately and indulgently before swimming over to join his fiancé that it made something in Harry's stomach contract painfully and he would probably have felt as if he was intruding on them, had they not always turned to him with an expression as if asking him why he was taking so long to join them as well.

When they had finally returned to the beach, Harry had felt rather exhausted from swimming for so long and he was glad when he felt the sand under his dripping feet again. But he had decidedly rejected the concerned offers for support when he had dragged himself towards the three sun loungers that the house elves had brought and gratefully sank down on the fluffy towel that covered one of those on the side.

They spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening down at the beach, being served iced tea and later a bake of rice pudding and peaches by the house elves.  
It didn't take long until Harry dozed off and he never knew how he got back to his rooms that evening.  



	12. Ives

War is imprinting, there is no denying that. It moulds a character in certain but very typical ways and the longer a person is subjected to the repercussions and the more directly impacted he or she is by those acts of war, the more palpable and long-lasting are those changes.  
It was undeniable that Harry had been in the literal centre of most events throughout the entire time of the war and even though it had been comparably short and though he was not really traumatized it certainly hadn't left him unaffected. His battle instincts and reflexes were well-marked nowadays and almost ever present when he was in the company of someone he didn't know very well or trust completely; and his prolonged existence as a fugitive had instilled in him a deep appreciation of the simpler luxuries that a regular daily routine could offer: he consciously enjoyed being able to sleep in on a soft mattress in a solid house more than he ever had, he appreciated a good, sometimes even a fancy meal whenever he wished it and which he didn't have to gulp down quickly and he loved taking long, hot baths or a relaxing shower instead of having to resort to cleaning charms.

It had also left him with a rather light sleep.

Therefore it came as no surprise that the soft but incensed voices drifting through the heavy curtains dividing his bed and living room had him wide awake and alert in an instant, while he kept his body relaxed and his breath even and calm in feigned sleep. Still, his heart beat madly in his chest like it had done not even three hours ago, when he had once again started up from his sleep due to a vivid nightmare. This time, though, he knew instantly that it wasn't a dream; someone was in an adjoining room to his own and from the sound of it, they were having a heated argument and possibly had less than his well-being in mind.

Upon noticing that he had some precious moments left to hide, Harry's first impulse was to jump up from where he laid so vulnerably on the bed, grab his wand and get into an easily defensible position; resolutely he opened his eyes and swept his gaze over the bedside table with trained efficiency, grazing the dark, the _bare_ wood where his wand should have lain. At that sight Harry swore and cursed mentally, but never one to just give up, he quickly decided to take cover behind the bed or a chair or use whatever hideout this room he was in would offer him and avoid a direct confrontation at all cost while attempting to escape. If his enemy was armed he had no chance to defend himself, no chance at all.

He got as far as sitting up when his mind caught up with his body's natural reaction and he remembered where he was. The room's arching design, the stylish furniture and the fresh, salty smell of the ocean drifting through his wide open windows told him all he needed to know.  
Immediately the tenseness drained from his body with a single breath of air that he hadn't even realised he had held in and he slumped back into the soft down pillows behind him. Raking one hand through his tousled hair Harry once again listened intently to the voices that appeared to come from behind the curtain to his living area and told himself to not be silly and calm down: who else could it be but Zabini and Malfoy after all, and Harry thought he could be fairly sure that they didn't wish him harm.

But still the hushed voices he heard appeared to be very much annoyed, even though he couldn't understand the words being said: they hissed and swelled and ebbed away again like the distant rumbling of a maelstrom, one Harry hoped wouldn't suck him in and crush and drown him. Because Harry could only think of one single reason why the two Slytherins might be mad at him, and that reason, while not truly scaring him, made him at least apprehensive of their reactions: they must have found out about that letter he had written to Hermione and Ron only the day before. Maybe the house elf he had asked for help had babbled his secret out to its master and now he would probably be put under constant supervision because of it. Maybe they would cancel the meeting with his friends now. Harry sighed while sitting up one again to confront the two Slytherins, only the thought of that made him miserable, he needed, really _needed_ to see them.  
Whatever consequences awaited him now, it was the only logical explanation for them to charge into his rooms and be so upset with him - at least Harry couldn't remember doing anything else that would warrant their ire since the evening before.

The evening before. Harry stopped short in his movements to fold back his blanket: coming to think about it, how the hell had he ended up in his room? The last thing he could remember was listening to Blaise and - _Zabini_ and Malfoy, talking quietly while he himself had dozed peacefully in the cosy sun lounger next to them, the soft white pillows had made him feel as if he was resting on a cloud while he enjoyed the fading warmth of the last sun rays. He had been so tired from swimming for so long, his body still recuperating, and their soft murmurs and the rushing of the waves and the light ocean breeze had lulled him to sleep better than any lullaby could have. Harry frowned as he recalled the vague feeling of gentle hands tucking a blanket around his body, the lingering warmth of another person's skin, the comforting, softly stroking touches as creases in the silken fabric were smoothed out and then when even the last of his muscles could not have relaxed any further… had there been lips pressing a kiss onto his hair? He thought that there might have been a soft movement, so soft that it had tickled him and he had tried to shoo the disturbance away with a careless hand wave … someone had chuckled… Harry frowned as he tried to recall more, but everything else seemed befogged. The whole end of the evening seemed to blur into the world of dreams and there was no telling what had been reality and what a far too real figment of his vivacious imagination.  
No, Harry really couldn't tell and that was like the splinter of an ice crystal in his bowels. Always, always Harry had been able to trust his instincts and now they seemed to betray him, not keeping him alert when he should have been. _That_ frightened him. He was in a foreign place with no one to trust but his own instincts and if they failed him now…

Or maybe he shouldn't be scared. Hadn't he tried to convince himself every so often that he had no reason to be intimidated where the two Slytherins were concerned? God, Harry just didn't know anymore.  
But in any case, a defiant little voice in his mind piped up, they really had to stop manhandling him when he was fast asleep. That was just downright creepy.

Harry shook his head once, twice, and tiredly rubbed over his face as he tried to clear his thoughts. He really needed to focus on the problem at hand and such an attitude wouldn't help him confront the two Slytherins.

Taking a deep breath to calm his anxiousness Harry brushed his unruly hair out of his face and slipped out of his king-size bed reluctantly, wondering what he would encounter the Slytherins' accusations with.  
In hindsight the letter had been a rash decision, one that he came to regret now that he had been caught (not that he would ever admit it to Draco and Blaise); but how could he have known that the letter would prove to be redundant because they would consent so readily to a meeting with his friends?  
Now he would have to face their anger, and probably even a little bit justified if everything was true what they had told him. Owls could be intercepted after all and there was no telling what might happen if other Vykélari found them; what if he had endangered them all?

Those were idle thoughts, of course, Harry knew that. What was done was done and he couldn't take it back any more. Still, he would hate being responsible for causing anyone harm.

His mind thusly occupied, Harry dressed quickly, taking the clothes laid out for him as a sign of goodwill and approached the solid wall of crème coloured damask curtains. When he carefully pushed the heavy fabric aside, his fingers gliding over the in-woven design of slightly paler swirls and what appeared to be a scheme of flowers, he was surprised to find the living area empty: the light flooded room still looked exactly the same as the time Harry had first seen it with its fair, heavily upholstered armchairs and couches, the fake fireplace and several tables and display cabinets with various blooming flowers, exotic art objects and heavy tomes.  
But the voices now reached his ears clearly and Harry could definitely make out Draco's growl from across the room. "Come out! Now!"

Confused, Harry gazed towards the open door of the study where the annoyed outcry had come from. Was Dra-Malfoy talking to him? He really didn't think that the blonde would address his lover that way, not after observing them the day before: those two seemed to genuinely care about each other. But if it wasn't Blaise Draco was addressing, who was it?

His answer came a moment later, in the form of another, unknown voice, though the words really baffled him even more.  
"I won't let myself be subjected to your fanatic redecoration!" A man hissed, lowly but clearly audible. Harry frowned in confusion: it was obvious that this was not Blaise talking: the voice was not as deep and silky as the Italian's baritone. And what was that about a redecoration?

"If you hadn't persisted on wearing that ghastly shirt for this painting, it wouldn't be necessary. Honestly, that colour is _smothering_ everything else in the whole study. Now leave those bushes, Ives…"

"I am _not_ a thing to be tailored to…"

"But you _are_ deluded…" the blonde sighed dramatically and then there was a small pause before Harry heard Draco take a calming breath and continue somewhat calmer and more politely but still a little bit uppish. "Ives, it might have escaped your notice, but you are a _painting_ and as such a part of the decoration of a room that needs to harmonise with the furniture, stylistically, thematically _and in terms of colour_! Though in all honesty I have no idea how to integrate you _anywhere_ wearing that … that _thing_. Honestly, if you just kept still and let me have a professional restorer tarnish the colour of your shirt so that it is … not quite so…" Harry could imagine the blond wave one elegant hand in a complex, intricate pattern as he searched for the right words, his poise impeccable. "… _garish_!"

Almost Harry burst out laughing in amusement and overwhelming relief. By all the deities he did not really believe in, it seemed they were not angry with _him_ and that had to mean that his secret was still safe!  
Considering everything, he felt foolish now for his earlier bout of paranoia. Why should that elf bother its masters with reports on such a trivial matter as a letter?

But really, did Malfoy honestly argue with a portrait over interior design and fashion sense having the same meaning for a painting?

"It's not garish and I happen to like it." The other man said, obviously miffed now. "And really, it is just a piece of _clothing_!"  
"I really don't know how Adler managed to bear with you…" Draco stated, honest wonder colouring his voice. He really sounded quite mystified, as if he was talking about one of the great enigmas of humankind, Harry thought as he crossed the living area and quietly made his way towards the study, wondering who the unknown portrait was and why he was being brought here. Surely if it was meant to keep an eye on him it would have been hung up in his living area or his bed room?

"He loves me, Draco." The man said in answer to Draco's exclamation, calmly as if he had stated an axiom, an unchallengeable, irrefutable point of reason stifling every possible refutation.

And that made Harry pause along with everyone and everything else, waiting for the sudden silence to be broken, while he fleetingly wondered if Draco felt abashed. Harry himself couldn't help but feel envious with the way that unknown person had spoken, so secure in the love of someone else: it must be wonderful to have someone at your side who would support you through everything and give you all the freedom to let you be yourself, not smother you in expectations.  
Unbidden, the moments before the moon had risen a few days ago and triggered his transformation sprung to his mind, the last moments of a life as a relatively normal young wizard (aside from being the involuntary Saviour of the Wizarding World), when the lack of support from the Weasleys concerning the Malfoy trial had been his greatest problem. And wasn't there a touch of irony in that fact? In a way, most of his problems seemed to revolve around that family nowadays.  
But still, he would have wished to have at least Ginny's and Ron's acceptance that he needed to stand up for someone he considered to be if not innocent then at least not guilty. He understood that there was an ocean of bad blood and moral and societal differences between those two families that was too wide to have the Weasley's support in such an endeavour, but their acceptance would have been nice.

"Harry?"

Startled Harry looked up from where he stood not three metres away from the door to his study, encountering Blaise's tall form, the dark eyes regarding him concernedly. How long had he been standing there? It surely couldn't have been more than a few moments at the most…  
"Are you alright?" the Italian asked, taking a step towards the younger teen. "You look tired. We didn't wake you, did we?"

Immediately Harry shook his head, allowing a smile to tug at his lips. "No," he lied.

"No as if in 'no, you are not alright' or 'no, we didn't wake you'?"

"No as if in 'you didn't wake me'," Harry specified, trying to look sincere. "I'm fine, really."

For a moment Blaise considered him critically and he seemed intent on inquiring further, so Harry interrupted him, not wishing to explain the nature of his nightmares at the moment.  
"Anyway, what are you doing here?" He asked, trying to look around the Italian's broad chest - now that Harry knew how much the other teenager loved swimming, that physique really came as no surprise anymore.

The view revealed nothing, but as Blaise looked at him, Harry found himself blinking against the small smile that shone like a sunlit black agate geode, open and bright and dazzling, which he was given as the Italian gestured towards the study. "We have a little surprise for you. Or rather: a surprise guest. Would you like to meet him?"

Before the Gryffindor had a chance to answer, Draco appeared behind Blaise, his gaze curiously guarded, his posture a little bit tense and Harry wondered when he had started noticing things like this on his former school enemy. "Good morning, Harry."

"Morning." He murmured in turn, his brow still creased as he regarded the blonde, trying to make sense of the mixed signals he was getting. It seemed odd that the two Slytherins should be so eager and yet so reluctant at the same time. "Soo … who is it?"

"I know that you said you didn't need to speak with someone who had lived through a similar situation," Draco began a little bit hesitantly and yet neither his voice nor his posture would have bespoken that he was not completely unperturbed, only the one second too many that he had waited before answering. "But one of my ancestors wished to speak with you nonetheless, to help you with all of this and answer any questions you might still have."

"We would have hung up the portrait in your living area as you'd be certainly more comfortable there but Draco thought you might not appreciate the loss of privacy." Blaise said not without a sparkle of amusement tingeing the timbre of his voice.

"I personally hate portraits in my private apartments." Draco continued as he shot his fiancé an annoyed glance. "There is nothing worse than your family spying on you in the one place that should be yours alone. And it is actually traditional to not have portraits in locations where they might pose a security vulnerability."  
His head held high, Draco turned towards Harry once more "Of course that would normally include the study, too. If you want to, we could have the portrait brought to one of the parlours…"

Harry gaped, couldn't do anything but. He had almost never experienced them as anything else than overbearing, obnoxious, smug and conceited, vain and utterly egoistical idiots. This amount of consideration - and even though Draco tried to be nonchalant about it and trivialize his efforts, Harry knew better after Blaise's remark - it was just so … _unreal_ and some part of him (the one that was not stunned into complete, heavy silence) was still searching for the catch. Was this yet another way to influence him and make him choose them as his mates? Or were they sincere?  
Warily Harry considered them, trying to gauge their expressions. If only Slytherins weren't in the habit of erecting masks of emotional void that looked as natural as a second skin…

"You want me to speak with him? Why?"

Blaise raised one hand in a placating manner. "Don't feel obliged to do so, Harry. But if you have questions you don't feel comfortable asking us, Ives, being a submissive himself, would surely be able to help you."

Harry hesitated, he was already in a minority here with the two Slytherins and he really didn't need another one to put pressure on him or trying to influence him. But right now the three of them had come to an unspoken armistice after Blaise and Draco had promised Harry a meeting with his friends; it was awkward and fragile, but it was there nonetheless and Harry thought that at least the other two teenagers wouldn't do something to really endanger it. If this Ives was here to try and win influence over him, then Harry would be prepared. This was a game two could play after all and if a little bit of acting would enable him to get more information and with it a more equal standing in this mess, then he was all in favour for it.

"Okay," Harry consented, "I will talk with him."  
And with that, he pressed himself past Blaise, who turned to escort him into the study with one hand hovering over the small of his back, Draco preceding them.

Harry didn't know what he had expected to see as Draco stepped aside and pointed towards a large painting to the side of the door with grand gesture and a "Harry, meet Ives Malfoy." But certainly not the handsome young man who looked at him with a mild, warm smile from out of a sea of rose bushes, the soft champagne colour of the blossoms bleeding into a bright red at the edges of each petal. At least he never would have guessed that the platinum blonde Slytherin who was a self declared enemy of the red haired Weasleys would have someone in his family tree with such a multihued mane of autumn hair.

"Finally Mr Potter," The portrait smiled, "and I thought you would leave me waiting here. I'm pleased to meet you." He inclined his head slightly in greeting.

"I'm sorry he looks so out of place. Ives was most difficult and refused to cooperate." Draco said as he watched Harry. "I will do something about it if you want."

"Or you can have the house elves redecorate the study however you like." Blaise interrupted, raising an eyebrow at his fiancé, making Harry wonder for a moment what he was missing.

"It's fine like this." Harry murmured, and it honestly didn't bother him at all that the deep blue shirt was a glaring splash of colour in the otherwise sober and unpretentious room. He had thought it too stark anyway; of course it was a study and shouldn't be distracting, but really, Harry was rather used to chaos, having lived in a boys dormitory for so long and having spent so much precious time at the Burrow in Ron's room or the twins'; and one couldn't really say that living as a fugitive had been in any way conductive in bringing him up to be more orderly. Harry just couldn't help himself, but somehow it always reminded him of the Dursleys when an apartment was too neat; after all wasn't it alright if one could see that there were real people living in it?

"Alright, it is your room after all." Blaise said quickly and Harry thought for a moment that the Italian had merely answered so fast to keep his lover from saying anything, at least Draco looked as if it almost pained him to leave the room like this. It wasn't something that Harry could sympathise with but if it meant so much to the Slytherin, he wouldn't be opposed to a redecoration; whatever Blaise said, Harry didn't feel as if these rooms were _his_.

He would have offered Draco free rein, had not Ives interrupted that moment, making them all turn to him once more. "Draco, Blaise, why don't you have the house elves send a light breakfast up for Mr Potter and leave us alone so we can talk undisturbed?"

Immediately Harry knew that this was not planned: next to him both of his hosts stiffened, their faces hardening into cold, unreadable marble. Curiously Harry watched from them to the portrait and back, and it made him intrigued: this Ives, this ancestor of Draco's seemed so unorthodox for a Malfoy, open and yet guarded, confident without being conceited and even though he was nothing more than a painting, it seemed he knew how to play them.

"We wanted to take Harry to the winter garden for breakfast." Blaise said a moment too late with a hint of a strained smile. Were they uncomfortable with leaving him alone with the other submissive, Harry wondered, astonished; but why then would they have brought him here?  
"You'll love it!" Draco assured him. "It is full of tropical plants that offer so much to see for a Vykélari's eyes."

Before he could answer, Ives interjected. "I'd like to speak alone with Mr Potter, Draco. And later today there won't be much time. Besides I think Adler intended to speak with the two of you, so you might as well leave the concerns of the submissives to the submissives."

After what seemed like an eternity of icy staring, Draco finally nodded. "As you wish, Ives. Harry, if you want to, we can meet you afterwards and teach you a little bit about flying. I think we should still wait with the magic lessons until you are a little bit more rested."

"I don't need to learn how to fly." Harry said stubbornly through his bafflement over their behaviour. "I need to learn how to control my magic so that I don't attack random people."

His face easing into a gentle smile Blaise leaned forward to brush a lock of black silk out of the Gryffindor's eyes, the affectionate expression in the dark eyes causing a tinge of red to colour Harry's cheeks. "You should learn both, Harry. But if you don't want to, why don't you join us on a broom? I have some of the best models here."

"Even though he doesn't like them all that much." Draco teased.

"But you do." Blaise simply said, turning to press a deep kiss onto Draco's lips.  
Harry turned away in unease towards the portrait, blushing as he saw Ives watching him with interest.

"And Harry does, too. Now come, Dragon, we lingered long enough. I'll have breakfast sent up to you, Harry."  
And with that the two Slytherins left, leaving Harry alone with Ives.

In the sudden silence, Harry felt awkward, not knowing what to say, what to ask, how to behave. He was the only known submissive currently alive and truth be told, he had wished to get the advice of someone who damn well knew what he had gone through, but could he trust this stranger?

Slowly he made his way to the desk opposite of the painting and the door to sit down, wishing that the desk was closed at the front and wouldn't leave him so open to the portrait's view because he had acquired a habit of jiggling with his left leg whenever he was nervous and sitting and he wouldn't be able to do that now without betraying his feelings to Ives. He just knew that he would be all fidgety in no time…

"You know, I didn't learn how to fly until almost a year after my transformation, not until Adler found me out." The red-head said lightly as Harry sat down, his sharp eyes watching him attentively.  
"For almost a year I managed to hide what I had become."

Surprised, Harry looked up. "You didn't want to be a Vykélari?"

"No," the other submissive answered, "not a submissive one at least. It was not what I had wished for my life."

Harry lowered his gaze, not really sure what to think of that. At least he probably had his answer now why Blaise and Draco hadn't wanted him to talk to Ives alone for the first time.  
"But nonetheless you got mated to a Malfoy." He said and wondered if that was what he was supposed to learn: that there was no way out, that he had no choice in the end but to mate them.

"Yes I did." Ives said, his voice mild and soft. "Adler … he made me an offer I couldn't reject."

"He blackmailed you?" Harry exclaimed, horrified. He had always known that the Malfoy's were in no way a line of saints, but to do something like that… hadn't he said earlier that his husband loved him?

"He bought me over, in a way." Ives corrected with a somewhat tight smile.

Disappointment drenched Harry like cold rain and again he turned away from the other. Somehow he had expected better of Ives after what he had heard earlier. The submissive seemed so confident and down-to-earth; not at all like someone who was susceptible to bribery.  
His emotions must have been openly visible on his face because only a moment later Ives said with a voice like steel "Don't you judge me for yielding to his conditions, Mr Potter! You may judge me for getting into the situation that forced my hand for that was indeed my mistake, but dare not judge me for righting it in the only way that was left to me!"

Harry kept his gaze lowered, not wishing to encounter the heated glare that he would surely see on Ives' face, nor wishing to talk about the other's problems, when he had enough of his own to deal with.

"I was forced into that mateship, not by my husband, but by circumstances. You are not. And I am here so that this won't change."

An uneasy snort escaped Harry's lips and he drew up his legs onto the chair. "I don't know, I feel pretty much pressured right now, by circumstances _and_ my would-be husbands."

For some moments, Ives let the silence between them spread as he considered the younger submissive. "Do you know why I asked to be brought here and be able to speak to you?"  
When Harry didn't answer, Ives continued nonetheless, his voice urgent. "Because Blaise and Draco said they would never force you, that they would never mate you if it was against your will."

Harry looked aside. They had already told him that, and it wasn't as if he thought they had lied to him, but still "They won't let me go, either."   
He bit his lip as he heard how bitter he sounded.

Ives sighed in the painting. "Mr Potter, the laws concerning Vykélari mateships are horribly outdated, because there simply hadn't been any submissives in the last two hundred years, so no one bothered to change them. Dominants are allowed to collect you and use whatever method necessary to force you to mate. In some cases dominants did blackmail submissives into mateships by threatening loved ones and were never convicted. Who would you turn to, Mr Potter? Who would you willingly endanger?"

Shaking his head Harry laid his arms around his knees, hugging them close. No, he didn't want to endanger anyone but … god, it was just such a mess.

"If I told you now how to force Blaise and Draco to let you go, would you leave?"

Instantly Harry looked up with an incredulous expression; was there even a question? "Of course I would!"  
He really couldn't believe the two dominants and Ives didn't at least exaggerate when they talked about what other Vykélari dominants would and could do; well that was a question he could ask Hermione the following day…

Ives nodded calmly, as if he had expected that answer. "Then I will offer you a deal. You will give my descendant and his fiancé the benefit of the doubt and an honest chance to court you. And you, in turn, will allow them to teach you about the ways of Vykélari with an open mind. In exchange, I will tell you how to leave them for good on the 31st of August this year, one day before the new school term starts. I hear Hogwarts will be reopened by then and allow for all those who weren't able to continue their education during the war to return for an eight year. In Hogwarts you will be a lot safer than anywhere else aside from a dominant Vykélari's home."

Open-mouthed Harry stared at the other submissive, not quite able to believe his ears. Was this offer a hoax? His eyes hushed from one point at the wall to another only to immediately abandon it again as if he was searching for something, maybe an anchor of some kind.

"51 days, Mr Potter, then you will be free to go wherever you want. And in the meantime your friends will be safe and you will have the possibility to learn about your new powers. What do you say?"

An honest chance. That was all Ives had asked for his freedom. And he would have to accept his inheritance but only for those 51 days.

"Yes" he breathed, feeling a little bit faint. After what had seemed like an eternity of bad news and even bleaker prospects, this … this was exhilarating. "Yes!" He repeated a little bit stronger now, a bright grin tugging at his lips insistently.

"Very good, Mr Potter." Ives smiled at him. "Very good."

"You promise, right?" Harry asked, still grinning from one ear to the other.

"I give you my word." The redhead grinned back, laying his right hand over his heart. "My word as a Prewett!"

Come again? Harry thought, Merlin, that guy managed to baffle and baffle him again. "A Prewett? But…"  
Molly Weasley's maiden name was Prewett…

"Yes, I know," Ives smiled a little bit sheepishly, pushing his long cascade of hair back over his shoulder. "You know one of my elder brother's descendants. His line never showed the active submissive traits though, and now the male line is extinct after Molly's brothers Gideon and Fabian died. I was very sorry to hear that."

Strangely, Harry believed him without a doubt. "Did you ever meet them?"

"Yes, I did. They had another painting of me which I sometimes visited. It was kept for possibly emerging submissives so that I might guide them after their inheritance, but that proved to be unnecessary in the end." Ives frowned thoughtfully. "I don’t know what happened to it, I can't visit it anymore and I can't help but think that Molly destroyed it after her brothers' murder. She was … uncomfortable having the painting of a Malfoy in her home and I guess it reminded her too much of what she had lost."

"They never spoke of you." Harry said, more to himself then to Ives, but the other man laughed nonetheless. "Why would they, Mr Potter? I died almost 300 years ago."

"Oh." Harry said, feeling a little bit foolish. Of course the other submissive would be rather old, after all hadn't Draco and Blaise told him that the last submissive had lived and died all but two centuries ago? Yet he simply hadn't thought of it...

"You know, you can call me Harry."

Ives smiled. "Another deal then: I will call you Harry and you will never call me Malfoy. I love my husband, learned to love him, really, and I loved many of our common descendants, but aside from Draco I have grown to really dislike the younger generations."

Harry grimaced. "I know what you mean, Lucius Malfoy is…"

"Horrible, I know. If not for Adler's painting threatening him with terrible revenge, I'm sure he would have burnt my painting already. He wanted me to spy on the living Prewetts through my other painting during the first war and when I refused … well, he pretty much has hated me since then."

"He wanted you to _what_?"

* * *

  
When the house elves finally brought breakfast, Ives was still entertaining Harry with more or less embarrassing stories about the respective Malfoys and continued to do so throughout breakfast until Draco and Blaise returned a little bit over an hour later, and even though his hosts threw murderous glares at the cheekily grinning, red-haired submissive, Harry felt lighter than he had in a very long time.  



	13. A New Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you drkbella and Wishfull_star, for your comments! And thanks everyone else for reading and for the kudos!

Blaise was angry and annoyed and oddly disappointed; maybe it had been a mistake to bring the two submissives together. Did Ives really have to drag Draco's family into the dirt in front of someone Draco had always tried to impress, always tried to live up to? What had the damn submissive been thinking?  
Draco knew that his family had committed many shameful crimes and it had taken him so long to be able to reconcile that fact with the view that had been hammered into his young mind from a very tender age on. How much time and effort had it taken for Draco to step out of his family's overpowering shadow, start to think by himself and become his own person? The person that Blaise loved.

Yet Draco was very loyal to his family still, not least because he was realistic enough to know that every stain on their reputation would mar his also. Privately, Blaise knew that his lover dreamed of following in Adler Malfoy's footsteps and recreate the meaning of _Malfoy_ , restore the so recently tarnished family honour. He wanted his enemies to fear _and_ respect him and he wanted his name to be recognized not only by their pureblood circles but by those of mixed blood also who were now starting to gain the upper hand after the war. Draco wanted his family not only to survive those changes but thrive in them.  
Blaise knew that, because he wanted it also for the Zabinis who had been watching from the sidelines for far too long. Such was the price of neutrality: one ceased to matter after a while.

And for Draco to get his nose rubbed into the flaws of his oh so noble family like this by Adler's husband in front of Harry of all people. Adler who Draco had always tried to impress the most of his family and Harry who had always been the more famous, the more prestigious one of the two, and the magically stronger as well; who had been the object of Draco's obsession for years, the incarnation of all the failures in his youth, of everything he couldn't have, everything he wasn't allowed to be. It had taken a war for Draco to notice that the image he had of the Saviour was nothing more than a projection of his doubts and jealousies and yet that realisation had still not smothered his guilty fascination with the other boy.

Draco had always ever wanted recognition for being who he was and what he wanted to accomplish and not for being Lucius Malfoy's son. In Adler's and his parent's eyes, in the eyes of their circles and peers and strangely enough: in Harry's. But with his family ordering his every move, guiding his every thought, how could he have done it?

And now Draco walked so tense next to him, hiding his hurt pride behind haughty aloofness and silent frostiness, feeling humiliated in front of the Chosen One and probably wishing for nothing more than to not be a Malfoy; Worse, there was nothing Blaise could do to make him feel better, because everything he could have said had been said before and Blaise could not change Draco's family history, however much he wanted to.

What was maybe even worse was that Harry was taking notice of the fallen Slytherin prince's frosty mood and started to become fidgety next to them while they led him towards the roof garden. He kept biting his lips to a swollen cherry red and massaged the knuckles of his right hand, rubbing over them firmly, absentmindedly. Blaise would have found it adorable, had it not been the proof of the Gryffindor's unrest. Another thing he had no idea how to alleviate.

Though evidently, Harry's discomfort didn't keep him from speaking out in the end, in a hesitant, awkward mumble.  
"Umm, you know, I wasn't … I really didn't intend to …" Harry shrugged and let go of his abused hand to rub over his brow with his reddened knuckles instead as he searched for words. Discreetly Blaise glanced over to his fiancé but Draco seemed unwilling to come to the stuttering Gryffindor's aide even though it should have been his task being the one their guest was speaking to. He sighed, realising that it was up to him once again to comfort the younger submissive – not that he really minded; he had no desire to see either of them like this…

"Don't worry, Harry," Blaise started in a tone of voice that he hoped would calm the brunet's conscience. After all, it was probably Ives' fault and not Harry's. "It's…"

"No, really! I didn't intend to insult you. And Ives certainly didn't."

Draco snorted softly, bitterly disbelieving, but said nothing and even if he or Blaise had known what to say, it was to be doubted that they would have gotten the chance, seeing as Harry grasped both of their sleeves and forced them to a sudden halt in the long stretched corridor.

"I'm not lying or making this up!" He exclaimed, his intense green eyes flitting from one to the other. Then he flushed lightly as he noticed that his hands were still entangled in the soft fabrics of their shirts. Immediately he snatched them back, letting them awkwardly fall to his sides.

"Let's be honest, Draco, I will probably never like your father…"

Blaise almost sighed, only barely withstanding the urge to try and rub his impending headache away; that was really not the way to comfort a hurting dragon…  
Next to him Draco huffed and encountered the Gryffindor's stubborn stare coolly, his chin raised in his hurt pride. "Let's not go there right now, okay?"

"No, just listen for a moment!" The brunet exclaimed exasperatedly. "Lucius is a right bastard and I'm pretty sure I won't like many of your ancestors either…"

Merlin, Blaise thought with a critical glance towards his fiancé, that wasn't going to end well. Draco's jaw was clenched tightly and he just knew if he got a chance to speak, the infamous Malfoy temperament would make him say something unfortunate.

"Harry, it would be better if we dropped the subject…" Blaise tried again with as much diplomacy as he was able to, praying the other would listen to the tightness in his voice, but the brunet was having none of it.

" _But_ … Ives said that you were the first in many generations of Malfoy's with the potential to be someone …" for a moment he hesitated, biting his lips as he looked uncomfortably into the narrowed, piercing grey eyes. Blaise dearly hoped he wouldn't say something unfortunate now; he was aware that Draco had frozen, awaiting the judgement of his ancestor with apprehension bubbling under the surface of his steely eyes, even if the flicker in his grey orbs was the only thing betraying his feelings. It was not often that a Malfoy directly imparted their opinion openly, they were all cold, chastising glances and proud, praising silence. Except maybe Ives, but he was usually a very private person.

"Someone he could be proud of." Harry finally said, his voice soft but unwavering and honest, just like the Gryffindor he was, maybe even a little bit Hufflepuff and suddenly, Blaise found himself blessing the boy for those traits that might make him vulnerable in a pureblood society, but not any less precious.

Draco blinked several times and then looked towards his Italian lover, obviously startled. "He did?"

Okay, maybe not Hufflepuff; for that Harry seemed too uncomfortable all of a sudden with giving compliments. "Yeah, well, you know, he said how Adler had been so relieved when you… you know, during the end of the war and all? And I mean I was, too. If I hadn't thought you to be better than your father I wouldn’t have stood witness for you…"

"Better than my father." Draco deadpanned, but his eyes held a soft glimmer now, and one corner of his mouth twitched traitorously as he wavered on the brink to the tender amusement blossoming below his earlier bitter frustration.

Something Harry didn't seem to notice. "Well, you are! I mean you saved my life by keeping silent that day in your manor when we were captured even though - even though it would have been better for you and your family if you had just handed me over to Volde… uh, sorry, to _him_."

Blaise smiled and shook his head to keep himself from jumping the black haired youth and kissing him right then and there until he fainted from lack of air. Just to shut him up, of course, before he managed to destroy with a careless remark what he had accomplished: in his awkward way, Harry had managed to say exactly what Draco had needed to hear, and it was quite endearing, really… Still, it was about time to deliver the poor jewel from his stuttering.

"Harry." He said, a smile tingeing his voice.

Draco's hand landed on his forearm to stop him from reaching out and his fiancé threw him a quick glance full of sparkling amusement. Blaise rolled his eyes. Draco enjoyed the fumbling compliments too much, really.

All the while, Harry went on ignoring his interjection, too busy evading their gazes. "And you couldn't kill Dumbledore; you _do_ have a conscience and I know it couldn't have been easy, you never had a real chance to choose sides…"

"Harry!"

"Don't interrupt me now! I will so regret this…" He said, shifting on his feet. Somehow the Gryffindor looked as if he really couldn't believe the words tumbling out of his mouth as he stared into space, wide-eyed and staggered by his own speech, one of his hands raking through his already tousled hair, leaving it as upset as he seemed himself.

"I still hate that you kidnapped me and how disrespectful you treated me at the beginning; you have. No. Idea. How much I hated that…"

"Harry…" Draco sighed, all the giddiness of a moment earlier all but vanished. He hadn't thought much during that moment after Harry's escape attempt, not past the single-minded exhilaration that only contesting with the Saviour of the Wizarding World was able to instil in him. And though apologies did not easily pass his lips, he knew that in this case a silent acknowledgement in the form of a missing contradiction was just not enough. "I am sorry."

" _We_ are." Blaise corrected, feeling much the same, except that it had been his anger clouding his judgement and if he thought closely now about how carelessly Harry was always risking his life … he simply couldn't be allowed to keep going like that. Even though Blaise knew that he had approached the subject positively maladroitly, it certainly would need further attention. The thought that Harry might end up dead or hurt because of his own thoughtlessness had his stomach in knots. It was unacceptable.

"Yeah?" Harry said a little bit warily, shifting his chin to the side and once again starting to torture the knuckles of his right hand as he considered them carefully. One of them gave a dull clunk, making Blaise's fingers itch in sympathy and with the want to keep the other young man from fidgeting, but he controlled himself under the Gryffindor's assessing gaze.   
Slowly Harry nodded. "Well, don't do it again and I'll try to forget about it for now."

Not giving the two Slytherins the chance to reply, Harry continued right away, speaking fast so as if he wanted to finish before he could back down.

"Anyway: I still want to speak with Hermione and have her confirm what you said would await me outside of this manor as a … a _non-dominant_ Vykélari. But I know that you … well, as Ives said: you have the _potential_ to be a good person, both of you, or you would have tried to blackmail me already into mating. Or at least Ives said that."

Taking a deep breath, Harry looked up at them with a self-deprecating half-smile. "So, I promised Ives I'd give you a fair chance."

For a moment, Blaise wondered if he had heard correctly, feeling quite dumbfounded and he couldn't help but be a little bit wary in the face of this latest development. Had Ives really managed to do what they had tried to achieve during the last one and a half day in one and a half _hours_?

But why, then, had the red-haired submissive run Draco's family down like that? And what exactly had he managed to persuade Harry with?

Next to him he heard Draco swallow before he asked. "A fair … and what exactly does that entail?"

Curious himself, Blaise trained his eyes on the brunet, observing with interest how his golden skin flushed appealingly. What, by Mordred, had Ives told the Gryffindor to embarrass him so?

"Well…" Harry drawled, blushing even more as he ducked his head. "Ives said I should let you court me, but honestly I'm not sure if I'm at all ready for that…"

Draco laughed, a merry, light sound that resounded through the otherwise empty hallway and made Harry look up, his expression an undecided mixture of annoyance and confusion. "What…"

"God, Harry," the blonde smiled, tilting his head a little bit as he reached forward to take Harry's chin between two fingers, a touch that the Gryffindor allowed wondrously. "Had I known you would look so strikingly beautiful when you're embarrassed, I'd have teased you mercilessly instead of insanely trying to duel the Saviour of the Wizarding World and losing to you all the time."

Harry narrowed his eyes a little bit and raised his chin, effectively breaking off eye contact with Draco. But a small smile played around the corner of his lips like sunlight falling through green-leaved, swaying branches, a proof that he hadn't seriously taken offence. "I'm not beautiful, especially not when I'm red as a radish but it might have made for a much more pleasant time in Hogwarts if I wouldn't have had to watch out for you and your cronies hexing me in the corridors."

"Harry, sweet, you are so painfully ignorant of how you affect others in every regard, always have been … but don't worry, in time we'll show you. And though our time might have been more pleasant, it would also have been less interesting. And I like to think that it was my teaching that kept you alive in later years."

"Maybe. You certainly kept me alert." Harry smiled wryly for a moment.

It was dangerous ground the two of them were moving on, and maybe it was too early to touch upon that part of their shared history, but now it had happened and someday the subject would have to be broached anyway.

And so, Blaise watched the two of them carefully, wondering if Draco and Harry grasped the significance of the situation. This was the first of possibly many tests the three of them had to pass together; and if they didn't, then … well then maybe they were not meant to be and he and Draco would have to find a safe way for Harry to get to know a suitable mate. Oh, how the very idea infuriated him!

Would it be better, though, to trick the young submissive into staying with them nonetheless? Blaise didn't know. He only knew that somewhat forced or at least arranged marriages had occurred in the history of both his and Draco's family and that, more often than not, they had worked out in the end. Ives was only one example. But then again, Blaise's own mother had killed her first husband, a husband she had only unwillingly married at the behest of her parents; which then had become quite the habit or even addiction for her - the killing of her husbands, not the arranged marriages - and the reason why Blaise had been allowed to propose to the man he had fallen in love with even though no child, no heir, could come from this union.

And his mother had been a pureblood, one who had been raised with the prospect of an arranged marriage, who understood the traditions. Harry wasn't, Harry didn't. He might end up hurt and bitter and trapped in a world he didn't even _want_ to understand, didn't want to know and the precious fire in his eyes that had always burned so brightly and made people follow him might be extinguished.

He would learn to live with them, because that is what he always did, because he was a survivor, but the fiery passion that made him special would be no more. Harry would be miserable and in the end, Draco would be, too, and Blaise.  
Yet, if they let him go, then Harry might face that very fate with another dominant and not only was there no way of foreseeing for which purposes that dominant would deploy the newfound power, also Blaise and Draco would always live with the knowledge that Harry was once again miserable and that nothing had been won by sacrificing the gift of his powers, of his company.

There was only one way to ensure that this wouldn't happen: they had to make Harry fall in love with them and now, thanks to Ives, they had the opportunity to woo him and show him that for all three of them to be happy and safe, they had to be together.  
And in Blaise's opinion, that was a fact. Seeing the newly awakened glinting in his lover's eyes, he was almost sure that Harry could make Draco happy, maybe even happier than Blaise alone could have managed. That he himself felt rather at ease with the Gryffindor even though he was normally much more reserved and generally needed far longer to warm up to someone (in the rare cases he did it at all) rather lead him to believe that he, too, could find pleasure in the company of the young submissive. He certainly was refreshing.  
That only left to prove that it was mutual, Blaise thought as he considered Harry, who was growing serious again in front of his eyes as he locked his intense green eyes on Draco.

"Draco, I've no problem with … well, with what happened in Hogwarts. God knows I've had more important things to do than keeping fixated on past grudges and I know that people can change. And Ives vouched for you, but … well, up to now you didn't give me much cause to think that you have. I will give you that chance now. Just this once, you won't get a second."

Blaise felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips, completely approving of the cautious answer. Now he was convinced that Harry would be good for Draco, able and willing to give him the opportunity that Blaise couldn't: the fair opportunity to honestly prove himself to someone who was neither prepossessed for him nor would pass judgement on him based on actions he had done while he was little more than a child or teenager under the thumbs of its parents. One person more who might come to honestly appreciate the Slytherin Prince for something else than his reputation.

"Thank you." Draco said quietly with a curt inclination of his head, Blaise agreeing silently.

"Yeah," Harry started somewhat gruffly, harrumphing slightly, obviously uncomfortable again, "just don't screw it up."  



	14. Touch of Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the review, Wishfull_star! And thanks for the kudos!
> 
> The next two chapters contain a lot of details about Vykélari magic and flying. I hope you won't be bored...

Harry found himself faintly reminded of the day he had first held his arm out above a broom on the grounds of Hogwarts, preparing to will it into his hand. Now though, he stood there on the roof garden of Lanai Manor, nothing aside from a shallow stone fence separating him from the edge as he once again faced the prospect of flying for the first time. The first time with feathery wings instead of a wooden broom.

As a first year in Hogwarts he had started with empty hands, just like now, and a heart beating quickly in excitement, before the broom had flown into his fingers upon a single-worded command. How he wished it could be that easy right then and there as he stood with the two Slytherins behind him and the salty sea wind in his face, because there was no trace of the joyful anticipation he had experienced right before his first time on a broom: the feeling he had now was darker, more queasy.

His wings were still retracted, waiting under a layer of tanned skin and Harry couldn't bring himself to let them burst from his back as he still remembered how much that had hurt him in the hospital, for only some moments, that much was true, but still it was enough to keep him imprisoned in apprehensive indecision.  
If he now thought about it, Harry couldn't really remember what had been so painful because at that moment he simply hadn't known what was happening to him, the pain had simply been there, refusing to be located or fought down, spreading down his back, along every muscle, every nerve. He never would have guessed that he had been growing bloody wings: only now Harry understood why the pain had appeared to originate from somewhere beyond his back but radiated into his torso in streams of liquid fire.

_'What is wrong with flying on a broom?'_ Harry thought, really not wanting to extract them ever again; it was a choice he could have been content with, if there hadn't been the promise to Ives to accept his being a Vykélari to gain his freedom.  
Well, maybe that wasn't exactly true: he couldn't rid himself of the image of Blaise that had burned itself into his mid. Blaise with his copper and bronze wings, looking so … indescribably in tune with every slight movement of the wind, so free, so agile, so beautiful in those few seconds that Harry had seen him fly… it had been more natural than flying on a broom could ever be.

Harry wanted that, too. If only he didn't have to transform again.

A shadow fell down onto the grass next to his feet and a moment later, Draco stood at his side and gave him an oddly serene smile that had Harry raise one eyebrow in questioning. The only answer he got, though, was a widening of that odd smile, then the blond turned away from him without further ado and let his wand fall into the open palm of his slender hand with a graceful twirl - that Harry might have been envious of had he found pleasure in such pretentiousness - and his wand arm moved in a complicated pattern, fast and sure as if he had done that specific spell million times before, an unintelligible murmur falling from his lips. Once Draco's smooth voice lapsed into silence, a small mirror appeared in front of Harry, gleaming in the light of the sun that still stood low behind them.  
With another spell the mirror was enlarged until it measured several metres in length and was at least two metres tall, hanging in the air before them. A mirror. Well, Harry pondered with a half-smirk, that might explain why the vain Slytherin seemed so familiar with that particular charm.

It reflected the sunlight, throwing it back and illuminating Harry and Draco and Blaise, who stood quietly behind them; but the reflection was not blinding them, as if the brightest light was somehow filtered out. While Draco turned towards him, Harry wondered if that had been part of the complicated magic that the blond had performed; it hadn't been a normal spell for conjuring a mirror, that was all Harry could tell.  
And so he nodded once in acknowledgement and respect. It was a nice bit of magic and a very neat effect even if he couldn't imagine having much use for it, especially during a flying lesson _'Why a mirror?'_ Harry questioned with his eyes as he looked at the pale, seemingly emotionless face.

"When you transform, Harry, I want you to look into the mirror. I want you to see your markings, your wings. I know you never did."

Harry rolled his eyes. Somehow he wished Draco and Blaise would stop acting as if he should be happy and eager about it all - like they were. He was trying, re really was: he would transform and do his best to adapt and learn. But after all that had happened during the last few days, with all that life altering changes forced upon him, could they really expect him to be exhilarated?  
Besides, transforming back into that bird-like creature just felt as if he was about to stick a toothbrush under the nail of his big toe and then kick against a solid stone wall with all his might: it was something all his instincts screamed at him not to do; he wasn't in any way masochistically inclined after all, even though with the way he kept antagonizing powerful wizards, that might have been a valid assumption. Now if he could fly without having to transform first…

Regardless of his conflicted feelings, his teachers went on with their instructions.  
"Okay, since your magic is probably still a little bit wonky, we'll do it without evitable magic and teach you the necessary spells tomorrow or the day after."Draco said.  
"Now take off your shirt."

Harry blinked, confused and a tiny little bit affronted. "excuse me?"

"Harry," Draco impatiently raised an eye-brow, "you really don't want to transform like that, do you? You would tear the shirt and the pressure on the growing wings is rather painful, or so I'm told. We'll show you tomorrow how to cut two slits into the fabric word- and wandlessly and close them afterwards but I think we should use less … expensive clothing for that."

"Oh. Yeah, of course." Harry muttered bitterly, thinking back to the hardwearing cotton T-shirt and the sweater he had worn that full-moon night, then quietly pulled off the light blue shirt, which Harry thought, was a lot thinner than what he had been wearing then and might have ripped more easily, not bruising his growing wings. It explained much and not for the first time, Harry found himself envious of the two Slytherins for having known, for having been prepared. He could have been spared so much pain and confusion, not to say panic.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry could see Draco turn his head to share a quick glance with his fiancé. "I realise you were most likely completely dressed that night but it really does not hurt in any way if done correctly."

"What were you wearing?" Blaise asked softly from behind him.

Harry shrugged, scrunching the garment in his hand to a ball. "Sweater, T-shirt. I was cold that evening, it had pelted in the afternoon."

"Merlin."

"Yeah." Harry said dryly, a bitter smile on his lips. "Well, it's over. But it certainly doesn't make this any easier."

"It's a wonder your wings didn't break! The bones are hollow."

Harry shrugged. "I think someone cut the fabrics." He couldn't be sure though, at that point he had not been able to see or hear anymore.

"We don't have to do this, Harry." Draco said, stepping closer to him. "It's up to you. But knowing how much you love flying - this takes the experience to a whole new level. I'm certain you would enjoy it very much. But we don't have to do this," he repeated "not now while the memory is still so fresh."

Harry blinked as he watched the Slytherin, searching the grey eyes, wondering since when the teen who had always tried his best to cause him pain - physical and emotional - in the past, who had in his attempt to murder Dumbledore cursed Katie Bell and poisoned Ron, who had helped Death Eaters enter a school full of his own peers and friends and so many innocent children… since when did that teen care for the pain of others?  
A moment later Harry looked away, feeling cheap. He had promised himself to bury all those things with those that had died. People did horrible things during war, and even the most peaceable persons could transform to monsters if left in the wrong peer group. Hermione had said that a group of seven intelligent people could have the group-IQ of a mentally disabled person and could act like a violent, uncontrollable mob. Like a pack of wild dogs riling each other more and more up in a hunt. No one could say truthfully what they would do in such a position if it hadn't happened to them yet. Muggles had even done experiments in that direction. Alarming and horrific, Hermione had called them. Even highly esteemed persons of good standing that usually commanded respect could be persuaded to the most cruel and vile deeds so easily it was disturbing.

And Harry believed that the blond had broken free of that at last, had found his conscience during the war or he wouldn't have stood witness for him.

Still, it was a little bit surreal, seeing him act so considerately.

"Why don't we just take another day off and tomorrow we will start working on your magic." Blaise asked then and Harry looked at him sharply. It was just what he had wanted to do in the beginning, Harry thought. He could back down now, could turn away and never transform again by postponing it from one day to the other until the 51 days were over.

But the image of Blaise soaring above the water flashed in front of his inner eye again and Harry shook his head. No, he would fly, he decided, not only because he had promised he would.  
In a certain light even, flying now was the most logical decision: Harry was already feeling apprehensive and it most likely wouldn't get better with time, his fears would set and become illogical and deep rooted, such is the nature of all fears. He should break through them now, while he still could. And then there was the promise to Ives that he would allow Draco and Blaise to teach him, and as a Gryffindor he wouldn't go back on his word. Also, being one of Hogwarts' lions, he just couldn't allow himself to chicken out of a simple task like flying. Damn it, he had been the youngest seeker in one century! And lastly, it wasn't as if he had anything better to do right now, anyway, was it?

Therefore, taking a deep breath, Harry shook his head and threw the balled up shirt behind him onto the ground - much to the raised eyebrows of his hosts. "Nah. We should do it now. I don't want you Slytherins to go and tell everyone that a Gryffindor dodged something you already succeeded in doing."

"Perish the thought!" Blaise smirked while Draco rolled his eyes.

"Besides," Harry added nonchalantly, noticing that both Slytherins seemed relieved by his yielding, "I want to know if I can beat Draco without a broom."

"Ha! You wish!" Draco sniffed in his haughtiest Malfoy-drawl, cocking his head.

"Well, we won't find out unless we try…" Harry countered before stepping towards the edge of the roof garden again, his heart beating way too fast despite his brave words as his green eyes fastened on his reflection in the oversized mirror. Even after two days (it was after all only his third day in Lanai Manor, the first of which had been very short because of his little outburst that had landed him in bed again due to magical exhaustion after not more than four hours) he found himself actually surprised that his body in human form hadn't changed at all after coming into his inheritance. Sure, the day before they had spent mainly down by the sea in the sun, which had lend his skin a nice, golden tan but aside from that, he was looking the same as before.

_'I really could ignore all this for the rest of my life. No one would notice.'_

Forcing himself to drop that line of thinking, Harry straightened out. It was already too late for that. People had noticed and though it might have been possible to cover his inheritance up, the Malfoys and Zabinis had made that impossible by making him disappear so suddenly from the public eye. There was no point in mourning squandered chances.

Taking a deep breath, Harry willed his wings into existence.  
He anticipated pain, the searing pressure on his skin that he now knew would have been the fabric of his clothing that had cramped his wings together. Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

But the half-expected agony didn't come. Neither did the weight that his wings should have made his back bear and the mirror showed no change when, after some moments, he finally blinked one eye open.

"Harry?" A hand landed on his shoulder, warm and soothing, and Harry looked into the mirror again to see Blaise's dark eyes considering him. "You don't have to do this"

Frowning stubbornly, wondering why it hadn't worked, Harry once again imagined the enormous, emerald and bottle-green and spring-green appendages that would erupt from his body, tearing his skin. His shoulders tensed.

Nothing happened.

"Harry?" Blaise inquired again.

"It's not working." Harry said, bewildered, absentmindedly wiping one of his sweat-slick hands on his pants. "My wings won't come out…"  
Frowning, he turned. "Am I doing it wrong?"

* * *

  
Blaise stared at the young submissive, his brows drawn together as he took in the other teen's posture that screamed of intense discomfort; the shoulders were hunched, every muscle tensed tightly as if he was already in pain.  
He sighed then. There was no way that Harry would be able to bring forth his wings in the emotional state he was currently in. His magic would never do something that he clearly did not want, that might hurt him. And since Harry feared the transformation of his wings and maybe even disliked the new appendages as the most obvious change that had come with his inheritance, the very epitome of his unwanted legacy, it wouldn't allow the brunet to do more emotional damage by letting the emerald wings appear.

A Vykélari's magic was almost sentient in and on itself. It could act on its own to benefit its owner and it could refuse its service when it perceived a certain action as a danger. Obviously, the latter was the case now.  
And yet, Harry had been able to change his eyes back and gain the Vykélari sight again, reluctantly but without any problems that Blaise knew of. It really seemed as if the young submissive majorly had a problem with his wings and not with the rest of his Vykélari attributes. From that fact sprouted the amorphous hope that maybe, maybe Harry's unwillingness to transform didn't stem from him rejecting his inheritance but from the fear of being hurt again, and therefore not from Draco's and Blaise's mistakes.

And fear, Blaise and Draco could work on with the young man, after all wasn't he a Gryffindor?  
In fact it just so happened that Blaise had the perfect, quick solution for Harry's fear that would literally kill two birds with one stone. Blaise halted internally for a moment at that: what an unfortunate wording for a saying when applied to Vykélari - bird-like beings. But well, what he planned would be a valuable lesson for Draco and Harry and enjoyable for himself at the same time, if they'd let him do it that is.

So, encountering the still questioning green eyes, Blaise took a step forward, to answer Harry's inquiry. "I do have a guess on why you feel unable to summon your wings. Would you let me try something?"

Warily, Harry tilted his head, his eyes narrowed against the sun. "What?"

"Just trust me for a moment. Please." Blaise said, keeping his face as neutral as any Slytherin during a negotiation, though internally his stomach clenched in anticipation, waiting while Harry regarded him thoughtfully for some moments. "No spells?"

Blaise heard his lover sigh at the obvious mistrust that they still encountered and he could only agree: he had hoped for more after their last conversation.

"You promised to give us an honest chance." Draco said, lowly, careful that no hint of an accusation tinted his voice; which almost drew a smirk on Blaise's face: sometimes Draco seemed to confuse the Gryffindor with a full-grown Hippogryph that he needed to placate lest he be trampled and hacked to death.

"And I am" Harry answered, biting his lips. "Doesn't mean that I'll be trusting you blindly. Just that I won't outright refuse your proposals and … and advances." He said, his cheeks flushing faintly while he stubbornly encountered their assessing gazes.  
"I …" he shrugged "I'll give you the chance to explain."

Blaise knew what those deep eyes were asking them for, those hauntingly beautiful wells of leaf green that he felt like falling into. And that almost had the tanned Italian lose his train of thoughts again: even if he might never love the brunet - though in time he believed that he could - he already was in love with his eyes. Just like Draco's silvery, white blazing gaze had been what had attracted him first and foremost to the Ice Prince. They spoke of a king of intelligence that couldn't be achieved with books.

Blinking once, twice to recollect himself, Blaise focused on Harry's almost pleading expression again that told him - them - in no unclear terms that they would be wise to not ask for more, to not ask for the submissive's trust and unconditional cooperation while they hadn't yet proven themselves to him, because Harry couldn't give it.

And that, Blaise felt, was acceptable, even desirable, because while he wished for the submissive to yield to them, he could understand that this would, right now, be the sign of a level of naivety and stupidity that no mate of his should or could possess.

Therefore he answered the unspoken challenge with a lazy smile and a smooth "That is quite alright, Harry."  
Then he let himself become serious once more, businesslike, just like he thought Harry might appreciate right now. "I think you are very apprehensive of your wings and that because of this, your magic won't allow the transformation. So I thought it might help if we tried to just show you. No spells." He added from under lowered lashes, wondering how Harry would react to his proposal once he understood its nature. As it was, right then he just frowned in confusion. "Why would my magic keep me from summoning my wings? I've had it under control for years."

"Your magic can't be controlled like that anymore, Harry." Draco shook his head. "If you just tap it a little bit, you can still direct it with a wand just like you used to." Draco proceeded, his voice losing a little bit of the tightness while the blond lost himself in the explanation. "Most Vykélari choose to do that because focusing your magic otherwise into very specific effects outside of certain ... let's say spatial boundaries, is neigh to impossible for most, and even for those who are able to do it, it is very difficult and demanding. But the whole of your magic will protect you, even from yourself." He thought for a moment, pursing his lips. "Imagine it like the accidental magic of children, just more self-decided and sentient."

Harry frowned and nodded like someone who was in the process of accepting facts while discovering inconsistencies in every nook and corner. Had he always been like that, Blaise wondered, stumbling over concealed truths and lies quite accidentally while others like Draco kept over-analyzing and scrutinising some matters and accept others if only they came from the right lips. Like following a sadistic, bloodthirsty and power-hungry madman would be a good idea.

"But … I mean: when none of us can really use all this power that we have, why then can't …"

"Why can't we leave you alone?" Draco finished in a soft murmur when Harry had fallen silent, his eyes resting on his former nemesis with an unreadable expression.

"Yeah."

"Well, to be truthful it is because the mating bond stabilizes the magic of those involved, making it accessible." Blaise answered, keeping his voice neutral and clinical; it would be inappropriate to show compassion when he was one of those seeking the benefits of such a mating.  
Still he refrained from voicing the obvious consequences of the effects of a bonding. There was after all something like too much and too blunt honesty and right now it would do none of them much good if they kept dwelling on concerns that might never come true the way they now thought they would.

So to stop the younger teen's mind from wandering further along those nebulous paths of ifs and buts, Blaise stepped closer to tenderly brush a thick, velvety black strand of hair away from Harry's brow. "Don't worry about it now. Remember that you are safe here, from us and from every other dominant. Now, Harry, on to more pleasant matters: do you still want to fly?"

Upon the guarded nod and a hesitantly murmured "Yes", Blaise smiled, hiding most of his excitement, before he turned to his fair skinned lover with an air of mischief surrounding him. "Your turn."  
Immediately Draco froze and his cold grey eyes narrowed at him dangerously, telling him that his beloved fiancé was aware of what exactly he wished to do; which was not surprising, they had after all spoken about it not even an hour ago with Adler when they had recounted to him all that had happened between them and the delicious submissive from the moment they had entered that hospital room. Blaise had, with the smile and the quiet thrill of a hunting panther, mentioned how intimate an experience it had been to have Harry's magic rush through his body, how unsettling and in hindsight utterly _addicting_.

Adler had smiled at him understandingly and said that this was somewhat of a foretaste of the establishing process of a mating bond that would allow them to permanently share their magic and, if they so wished, their thoughts and feelings. And he had also explained how to deliberately install a temporary bond like that while keeping control of one's magic.  
Of course Blaise had openly admitted how much he wanted to repeat the experience, even though he knew that Draco had found it more than a little bit disconcerting; which was understandable, too, since Harry and he had been enemies for far longer than the duration of their relational limbo after the war; or the few days as kidnapper/host/courter and victim/guest/courted. Unsurprisingly, Draco had refused, saying also that Harry would never want to do it at this time.  
But Blaise wanted Draco to experience what he himself had during Harry's transformation. That uncomfortable feeling of nakedness in the face of pure power, almost like a violation of your magical core, so intimate. But heady and intoxicating in the sense of closeness to someone who was just as helpless to defy that connection; the knowledge that it could also go both ways. For the first time in his life there had neither been a need nor a possibility of hiding.  
A truly dangerously thrilling experience. And intoxicating.

Yet more than this, Blaise believed that it was an experience that they needed to go through rather sooner than later because it was equally as important for Harry as it was for Draco: their sweet Gryffindor needed to accept and embrace his legacy to move on with his life and he needed to know what the future held for him, what they could give him. He wanted to show Harry together with Draco not only how to live with being a Vykélari, but also how to thrive on those changes. After that childhood, that war … with such a past, Harry deserved to live again, and not have his magical and personal strength go to waste. That was something they could do for him.  
And Draco needed to understand not only what a bond between them would gain them, but also what it would _cost_ them: privacy, appearances, masks; all of those were after all very important for the Ice Prince of Slytherin and Draco needed to be certain that he could lose those in front of Blaise and Harry.

It was a necessary lesson for all of them, another challenge that Blaise was now confident they could live up to; they could do it now, they _should_ do it now: who knew how long Harry's cooperation would last, who knew if he would give them the chance for a taste of this bond ever again?

And yet as he stood there with his fiancé's angry eyes and Harry's confused ones firmly resting on him, Blaise couldn't help but think that maybe all of this was too early, that maybe he should have given Harry more time to become comfortable around them, and Draco to become used to the idea of sharing himself.  
Mordred, it was not like him to rush a decision or to unthinkingly voice his thoughts like this, but he couldn't take it back now without losing face, or worse: without giving the appearance of trying to get a fearful lover an avenue of escape. Draco wouldn't appreciate it, not in front of Harry. And so, he waited.

* * *

  
Draco graced the Italian with a cold, ill-humoured glare for long, unending moments. He hated being pressed into a corner, having his choices taken away from him. Something inside of him snarled and raged against the very idea.

Showing Harry the transformation! What was he thinking? He knew that Blaise had wanted the relive the magical connection, and in a way he could understand that it was the most efficient, innocuous way of ridding the Gryffindor of his apprehension of his wings, but still…

Draco would have sighed or frowned or snapped at Blaise, if Harry hadn't stood there watching the two of them with that curious expression; how could Draco, when it was not him who had a valid reason to be anxious but the younger submissive who had lived through a hell of a traumatic transformation and had to face it yet again.  
And how could he, if it was such a simple request from someone he loved so dearly and who had always stood at his side. Through everything and against everyone? If it was that important to his fiancé, important enough for him to voice it in this unsubtle way without giving him the possibility of a graceful refusal, he would indulge him of course, but well … he just hoped he would be able to not bare himself.

This had never been his intention when agreeing with Blaise on wooing the Gryffindor; he had thought that for once he was in a superior position in regard to his former enemy, for once the teacher, leading by example, for once the winner of their meaningless and yet so _essential_ competitions. And why not? He was, after all, to be the dominant in their relationship. Or one of them in any case.  
But Harry was magically stronger and he would never just submit _and_ he would install a bond between the three of them that would leave them stripped bare in front of each other, in a way that Draco didn't know if he could learn to be comfortable with. He had not thought much about that little trivia before.

It was not a question of trust: He trusted Blaise, gods, he trusted him with his life, with the secrets of his family and himself, and deep down he knew that he could trust Harry. Even through all their hate and rivalry during Hogwarts, he knew he would be able to trust that teenager who simply was too noble, too principled and fair-minded for his own good. He just hadn't wanted to see it at that time.

Exposing his physical and emotional feelings and thoughts though, was quite another matter and it just went against every Slytherin instinct ingrained into his mind, and yet, it also aroused the morbid curiosity of a small, half-hidden part of him. A part that he usually labelled as insane and downright self-destructive and dangerous and tried to ignore to the best of his ability. Not always successfully, but mostly.  
It was the part that had made him repeatedly challenge a young wizard he _knew_ was more powerful than him, the part that had taken guilty pleasure in the challenge of repairing those vanishing cabinets - at least while he had still been naïve enough to not be overly afraid; the part that had made him stupidly join the Battle of Hogwarts. And what a wonderful idea that had been!  
At least it had been the right side that time, the winning side. Still it had been dangerous and downright self-destructive and so not Slytherin.

Now it flared.

Jerkily, he pulled off the shirt he was wearing and held it out for Blaise to take while holding his eyes for a moment just to be sure that his fiancé knew what sacrifice exactly he demanded of him, before he turned to Harry, gentling his gaze somewhat upon encountering that apprehensive expression. At least the Saviour was not faring any better than he was, it seemed. Maybe he should just curse Blaise and be done with it, for Harry's and his peace of mind, Draco mused, throwing a quick glance at the handsome Italian, locking gazes with those dark eyes that were gleaming with a warmth and encouragement that he did not often encounter there. _'Well, then'_ , he thought with a mental sigh _'maybe no cursing'_. But he couldn't help wondering what Lucius Malfoy would say, should he learn about how his role model son caved under a single look of affection and support.

"Step behind me if you will." Draco instructed Harry and stepped past him, turning towards the mirror so that the black-haired teen only needed to close the small distance between him and neither one of them would have to face the other directly while they were connected thusly.

Because somehow through the mirror, it seemed less intimate, yet even so Draco didn't look at the two young men behind him while he steeled his expression.

He didn't flinch when hesitant fingers grazed the skin of his back, most likely guided by Blaise's hands, the touch of which he could have recognized anywhere. Then a moment later it shifted, the number of fingertips lying against his skin doubling as doubtlessly, his fiancé entwined his own hand with Harry's. Still facing away, Draco indulged himself by rolling his eyes and smiling faintly, almost fondly. Blaise was so predictable sometimes. Well, at least _someone_ was.

"Vykélari can feel magical streams, Harry." The Italian explained. "We can in a way manipulate the very essence of magic, but - with exception of mated Vykélari - only when directly in touch. Because concentrating magic is a very difficult feat and the very reason why wizards are using wands. Wild, pure magic is chaotic, it dissipates and randomly condenses into streams and clouds again when uncontrolled. A wizard can seize the streams in their own body and wield them in certain ways through speech and wand-movements. Without these tools, a vast amount of power and concentration is necessary to enforce a specific effect.  
Theoretically speaking, though, Vykélari can potentially direct streams that have left their body and use them as tools. So, with much practice you could for example change the effect of a hex you already casted and which has not yet hit its target - but don't do that unless inevitable: even a small mistake can have disastrous consequences! Quite similarly to the mispronunciation of spells."

Draco smiled as he remembered his father giving him that same lecture. Since then he had tried to do just that: he and Blaise had sent out stunner at everything around them in the two months since receiving their inheritance, mostly to take their minds off the upcoming trials, trying to change the spells into explosion charms; never with much success. Maybe now, together with Harry all three of them could explore and push those boundaries. Wasn't that worth the loss of security and privacy that the bond would cause? Wasn't this what dark - wild - magic was about? Accepting the dangers of the unknown just to reach for something greater? He was a Slytherin after all, he held the ambition and the intelligence to become an outstanding wizard. Blaise did so, too. And Harry? Harry. The Gryffindor role model… _'would he even want to walk that path with us?'_ Draco wondered, frowning and wishing that he knew more about him, while Blaise went on with his explanation.

"Now for our purposes you could also mould the streams and use them directly as tools. But as even Vykélari cannot keep them from disintegrating again - or at least that is very exhausting and difficult - you can use such tendrils only by touching the target."

"Is this a magic or a flying lesson?" Harry demanded behind him, his voice flat, and Draco pursed his lips in amusement. Trust the Golden Boy to lighten the mood.  
"Don't be impatient, Harry. A little bit of magical theory never hurt anyone."

"Gryffindors…" Blaise sighed in fake exasperation; Harry just snorted.  
"As I was about to summarize before you so rudely interrupted me: The closer the magic is to you, to your core, the easier it is to control. By touching, you and Draco are facilitating a temporary connection to each other's magic and body."

Immediately Draco felt Harry trying to pull his hand back with a sharp intake of breath that Draco more _felt_ than heard. And within a moment he had wriggled his hand out of Blaise's loose grasp and taken a step back.  
"Whoa!" he said, holding his hands up. "A magical connection between our bodies?"

"Yes." Draco said, tilting his head as he steadily gazed at the … well, he would almost say 'skittish creature.' A sweet, skittish creature, but skittish nonetheless.

With a nervous laugh Harry shook his head. "I don't know if that is a good idea. I mean … a bond?"

"Not _such_ a bond, Harry!" Draco drawled with a lewd smirk.

"Actually the two of us already had something similar in the hospital." Blaise pointed out with an amused smile, folding his arms in front of his chest. "I allowed your magic into my own body so that it could explore the structure of a Vykélari's sensory system."

"Now if you want, I will allow your magic into my body to observe my complete transformation." Draco offered, carefully watching the dumbfounded expression of a clearly out-of-his-depth Harry.. "But this time you will stay in contact with your magic and try to feel what it encounters."

"Sounds complicated."

Laughing, Draco leisurely waved the brunet closer. "It sounds worse than it is, like most magical theory. Don't worry, you have a talent with magic, I know you do." He gave him a wink, delighting in his newfound hobby of embarrassing his former enemy that proved to be such a good distraction to his own trepidation. Merlin, but he could blush so sweetly.

"Besides," Blaise murmured reassuringly with a small smile, "both Draco and I will assist you in directing your magic."

With a resigned sigh, Harry stepped closer even while Draco once again turned away from him with an elegant twirl that would have put a certain potions professor to shame.  
"Step behind me and lay your hand on my back, like before. This way you will also be able to see the transformation. If at any point you become too uncomfortable, just break the bodily contact between us and the magical connection should collapse."

Once more the trio resumed their respective positions and Draco felt himself tense a bit as the joint hands of his lover and someone who might have been a friend or more in a different reality pressed gently down on his muscles. It didn't take him long to feel out his own magic and push it outwards into the fingertips as a silent invitation.  
A ripple of excitement and apprehension went through him and he closed his eyes, concentrating on the other senses that mattered the most to him: his hearing and the ineffable intuition for magic that he usually liked to compare to a migratory bird's sense for magnetic fields. If he concentrated enough, he thought he could almost see Blaise and Harry, even though he was turned away from them, even though his eyes were closed. But they were so bright and the magic that filled every cell in their bodies made his skin tingle oh so pleasantly. It was a deep feeling of awareness, of consciousness on a level that he felt unable to explain - quite unusual for him, since words would not normally evade him. But right then and there he only knew that this effect was enabled by the three of them reaching out for each other and Harry, sweet Harry linking them, grasping their magic and forwarding it, keeping it energized and focused without changing the intent. Blaise and he could not maintain their magic like this once it was more than a few inches away from their body and even then they could not maintain the structure of a connection for longer than mere seconds.

The awareness deepened then as Draco felt a torrent of magic flood his being and a sharp spike of panic rose within him as he fought the foreign feeling of being invaded so brutally. The air that he drew in a deep gasp felt cool in his lungs. Something was there immediately, soothing him with warmth, ponderousness, sluggishness; as if he was falling into a pool of a clear, viscous, gooey substance that clouded his mind, and cradled him in weightlessness. And Draco found he didn't care anymore: he existed purely of sensation.

He thought his heartbeat was slowing … or speeding? There were too many beats in any case but he didn't think that all of them belonged to him. He might have been a birdlike creature, but this fast rate would have killed even him… and there were breaths, too many breaths of air, too irregular: in-in, out in and out and out-in again. He feared he might hyperventilate even though this was not *his* breath, he realised; though it could have been since his ribcage seemed to raise and lower with each of his own intake and the echoes of Blaise's and Harry's breaths. And it was paralyzing and intimate and chaotic, too close for his comfort and he realised that they could also feel _his_ body, maybe even more so than he did theirs, since he was the one to draw in their magic.

The confusion that was his own was soon joined by wonderment and excitement and apprehension, feelings that bubbled up inside of him and were so intense that they burst from his lips in a gasp and a choked chuckle or a sob that was more a result of Harry's and Blaise's overpowering feelings than his own.

And then in the natural aspiration of sameness that animals and humans often show in their behavioural patterns, Draco felt the overwhelming shock from the differences in their breathing and heartbeat recede as Blaise and Harry and he assimilated, became one and just like that everything became easier to bear.  
It was a treacherous illusion though, because once their bodies seemed in tune, Draco became aware of all the small, unexpected trifles that in their entirety were oh so oppressive: his own fingertips were tingling from where Blaise and Harry were touching his skin, and his eyes, his closed eyes saw his own back, heaving with almost desperately drawn breaths and those intertwined fingers that were contrasting beautifully with his whitish skin. He could feel breath on his own shoulder and the echo of that sensation in his lover's and their submissive's being; not in their minds, in their very beings.

And Harry's indignation at the unintentional possessiveness he projected in his direction.

That ultimately allowed both him and Blaise to somehow draw back and reign in their emotions. It had come unexpected - all that chaos of each other's sensation - but after a few moments of being exposed to it, they were able to bethink themselves of all those lessons in concentration when performing difficult magic. First Blaise calmed, letting a deep silence permeate into the other two participants of their temporal bond, then Draco followed suit, emptying his thoughts like he had learned under Severus' tutelage in Occlumency. They still shared the awareness of their bodies, of all the strictly physical side of their selves but not their emotions.

Harry, though, seemed still too befuddled, too amazed with it all to give it up just yet. Or he was simply still crap at Occlumency. Hadn't Severus told them that the Gryffindor had never mastered the art?

Which was quite alright in Draco's books: he couldn't wait witnessing so closely how Harry would experience his first conscious transformation.

"Look!" he breathed, the heady backlash of the words, the movement of his Adam's apple as he spoke, whipping through all of them.

Very, very slowly, Draco summoned his wings, witnessing everything through Harry's wide open eyes - Blaise had followed his lead and closed his own so that the confusion between them was minimized. All three of them were looking now through those endlessly green pools.  
It was an interesting perspective that Draco had never seen himself out of and he shared in the perturbed fascination of the young submissive, as the muscles and bone structure beneath his skin shifted, creating a new joint for the powerful wings and the muscles that would carry him through the summer air.

"See? It doesn't hurt." Blaise murmured behind him, with him, in him; then the dark Italian clasped Harry's hand, shifting it to Draco's spine without losing contact and it felt good, as if his lover was holding Draco's own hand.

Almost leisurely Draco let the skeleton of his wings press against the skin of his back, denting it outwards, expanding it with the lengthening bones.  
"This is _so_ gross." Harry said as slowly a featherless wing burst from Draco's back, causing the two Slytherins to laugh and their laughter to rumble through Harry's torso also, taking the edge off his disgust.

"Be careful to not transform too fast, Harry, or the growing wing bones might pierce the skin." Draco said softly, remembering the blood that had clung to those emerald wings in the hospital "Your magic will of course heal it immediately, but it smarts quite a bit. It often happens during the first transformation and whenever you are too distracted or impatient. But normally taking one or two seconds for the change will suffice to evade a rupture of the skin."  
He barely felt Harry nod, the brunet was too taken with the changes in front of him as downy, white-gold and silver and white feathers erupted from the smooth skin, lengthening and firming even while the wings themselves were growing further until finally, they spread almost over the whole length of the mirror still in front of them.

An echo of movement and a sense of nagging curiosity and then Harry touched the feathers, their softness and velvety texture tingling over sensitive fingertips of three hands, barely felt at all; a touch of nothingness. Draco smiled, felt Blaise smile with him and Harry's not really annoyed huff and at that very moment of content, delight and warmth it dawned on Draco how very comfortable he was despite or maybe because of the closeness and intimacy of the bond.

He opened his eyes, narrow and thoughtful as he sobered and awoke from the rapture of the moment and immediately he had to battle down the vertigo that his body experienced from seeing two overlying images. It only lasted some moments before he managed to block out Harry's sight but still it added to his sudden discomfort.  
Had he really allowed his guard to drop that much just from the simple relief that the connection had not proven to be unbearable and from whatever elusive dreams of security and warmth were to be had in that pretence of a bond? For it hadn't even been a real bond.

It was this sudden realization that had Draco step forward hurriedly, breaking off the bond effectively. For a moment he feared that Adler had been wrong, that they had somehow made the connection permanent but then the lingering touch of the other two young men's sensations gradually vanished as if they had left a pressure sore on his being that needed time to fade away.

Nothing was left now, Draco noted as he stared at his reflection, nothing but his too fast breathing.

"Are you alright?" Harry. Not Blaise; a Slytherin would not draw attention to the weaknesses of someone he loved - not in front of others at the very least.  
Draco didn't know what to answer. This had not been expected, not planned. He had been afraid that the intimacy would be too much to bear and that he might break the connection because of that, or that Harry would break it because he found himself unable to accept the sensations of the transformation. He had not expected to lose himself in it. And that was what had happened: they had breathed as one, their very heartbeat had synchronized. They had manipulated each other's feelings: the excitement and exhilaration that had not been his own, but Harry's! The wonder and fear. The soothing touches from both Blaise and Harry at the beginning before the Slytherins had partly erected Occlumency shields.

Draco didn't want to be influenced that way.

Couldn't.

"He is fine." Blaise answered for him, but his piercing gaze hovered over Draco, the dark eyes so void of the emotions Draco knew to be there: the concern, the unasked questions, the promise of a discussion yet to come…

And wasn't that a conversation to look forward to? 'I know you quickly become addicted to that bond, but you know what? I can't stand how exhilarating and intoxicating it is so let's just get it over with and push the boy out of bed.' Yesss, that would surely go down well.  
Never mind that Harry was sweet and considerate and fair and that it felt good to be in contact with someone who didn't play mind games all the time - well, never, to be exact. Never mind that he had found enjoyable now what he had despised in Hogwarts from a distance: oh, Draco had loathed it when that willingness to help, all that zeal and intense attention was focused on all those dumb trolls that were so much like black holes: ever sucking everything up without it having any effect at all aside from bereaving other, more deserving people of what they took so carelessly. But Merlin, it felt good when that very intensity was directed at him and Blaise.

God, he wanted that bond to work; just not like this… not if the cost was his or their integrity of mind.  
He really needed to talk to Adler. Perhaps there was a way of avoiding such a blend of selves between the three of them without having to give up the entire bond. For now, though, there was a submissive to entertain. A too perceptive submissive, who, Draco feared, might balk if he thought them to be indecisive or insincere.

"Nothing wrong, Harry, sweet." Draco said with a masterfully faked smile - one wasn't crowned the Ice Prince of Slytherin without a powerful family and a good portion of charisma and acting skills. Then, as if to prove his words he reached out to the smaller teen and gently manoeuvred him to stand in front of him, facing the mirror. "Why don't you try to transform now?"

But despite his considerable talent as an actor, Draco could see Harry hesitating and he prayed the Gryffindor would be sensible enough to not press him now, even if he noticed anything wrong. For some gruellingly long moments, the brunet watched Draco's reflection in the mirror before he seemed to come to some conclusion, fortunately one in Draco's favour: with an almost imperceptible shrug and a curt nod, he said "Yeah, lets."

* * *

  
Inwardly Blaise cursed. Draco had been right: they should have waited.

He had not known that the connection would be so intense. It had certainly not been like this in the hospital when it had only been him and the submissive and he could only speculate as to why that was. Maybe it was the fact that Harry's subconsciously steered magic had been much more controlled than the chaos the three of them had fabricated; maybe it was for the simple reason that there were three of them now where there had only been two, or it was because they had consciously witnessed the sensations and emotions of each other when before that, Harry's magic had surveyed Blaise's body without reporting anything back to its owner.  
Whatever the reason, the connection had been too intense for comfort even though the Occlumency shield had helped some; and now they had to deal with the implications. Whatever they were.

Though it seemed that it had affected him and Draco more than Harry, probably because the submissive had been the aggressor during this connection. Or the Gryffindor was simply better equipped to deal with a situation like this.

On another thought, perhaps Severus' instructions in Occlumency had gotten the poor Gryffindor used to getting his mind violated.

A rather harrowing thought. One that inspired him to teach the potions master a lesson of his own in due time. Perhaps he would.

Still, that this had happened was Blaise's fault for pressing so resolutely towards this little experiment and he certainly would apologize to Draco once they were alone. For now, he was unsure how composed his fiancé really was after this unexpected experience and how much was acted and so Blaise was infinitely grateful that Harry seemed to be empathetic enough to know when to keep his silence.  



	15. First Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I'm kind of tired of this. 
> 
> If you have a problem with Draco: please discontinue reading.  
> If you don't like Top!Draco: why the hell did you ever start reading in the first place? I didn't tag it as bottom!Harry just because it looked nice between all the other tags. So, please, DISCONTINUE READING.
> 
> I'm updating everything I have today. After that it's going to be slow updates.

A persistent feeling of elation still pulsed through Harry's body like the echo of an electric shock, defying the sudden sense of loss and loneliness and the deep-routing confusion that followed the break of their connection.  
Why the hell had Draco stepped away? He had thought all three of them were enjoying themselves, basking in the closeness, intensity and intimacy after the initial discomfort at the unexpected sensations (and at the identity of the participants) had faded. He himself certainly had…

Harry took a deep breath, congratulating himself when it didn't appear to be shivering. That must be the understatement of the century! But enjoying it so much had in itself been unanticipated to say the least. But explainable, he thought.

All his life he had been alone in some way or the other; that, he really couldn't deny: Harry had been lonely on his own at the Dursleys' without any long-term, real friends that Dudley hadn't managed to scare away sooner rather than later with his not so empty threats and his gang of bullying retards; alone during the long summers after his 11th birthday in that same hell-hole; alone with his problems of mad wizards trying to kill him all his life, and the burden of being predestined to kill the mightiest of them or be killed himself – Harry had never wanted to endanger his friends and had tried to keep them away from the most precarious of situations (not that he had been very successful in that endeavour) and besides that, Hermione and Ron only could follow him and lend him their support so far: in the end he had had to deal with the visions and the fulfilment of the prophesy himself.

And now this.

He had never felt so close to anyone before, never so _not alone_. Warm and secure and safe he had felt with the emotions of his companions openly visible in front of him. There had been no secrets, no withholding, only the honesty that had been so often denied to him in his life even by the people closest to him. Even after Blaise and Draco had hidden their feelings away behind the thickest Occlumency shields they could muster, he had still been able to read from their body language the thoughts that usually were indecipherable to him. The ease in their posture, a small twitch of the corner of a mouth, a fluttering in the stomach; it had told him all he needed to know – as well as telling him what to focus on in the future.  
He had been surprised that for the moment there had been no hidden agenda to be felt at the back of their minds. Instead, their presences in his own mind had been so comforting and soothing, chasing away all of his apprehensions at the transformation for the time being and cradling his curiosity and amazement like something precious.

From the bottom of his heart, Harry had enjoyed that openness, that closeness, that feeling of being held and treasured … or something coming close to that at least.  
It was something worth striving for, and for the first time since the full moon Harry felt as if bonding to a dominant Vykélari might have its benefits after all. He didn't need more magical power, he didn't need more influence in the magical world and so he hadn't seen anything worthwhile in this whole affair but this level of secureness and comfort, this level of connectedness, understanding and… and intimacy was something he would not be able to find anywhere else… of that he was almost sure. Ginny was the closest he had come to truly loving someone and even with her there was always some part of himself that hid, that needed to protect her by keeping secrets. This bond had been and meant something else altogether.

A shame, really, that it had not happened with people he actually trusted. Oh, he hadn't lied to Draco, not in the true sense of the word, he was ready to forgive him for what he had done during their school days and in the war, but he would not forget, not that easily. He did not blame him or accuse the blond Slytherin, but their joined past had taught him to maintain a healthy wariness, more so than he would have if it had been a total stranger instead: Draco now needed to prove his trustworthiness instead of his untrustworthiness, and that was always harder to do.  
Which was alright. The deal with Ives' only stated that Harry needed to give them an honest chance, and that was exactly what he was doing. He was not being hostile anymore or tried to flee, he went along with their plans even if they made him uncomfortable. They could not expect more of him when he was still trying to get used to the idea of being the object of someone else's desire, let alone of a boy, much less two boys. Two boys, who had additionally graced him only with sneers and insults in the past, had slandered his best friends in the worst ways possible, tried to get them all expelled and generally spared no effort to make him miserable. And now those same teenagers regarded him with glances and gazes he didn't even want to contemplate and kept bestowing fleeting touches on him, which, to crown it all, had the brass neck of actually feeling good.

He still thought that had something to do with his magic reacting to theirs. He couldn't _really_ like it, now, could he?

But why then – if it felt so good, if it was what the two dominants wanted from him – why then had Draco broken away? Why was he so disconcerted now? And he was, the Gryffindor knew him well enough to know when something unsettled him. Their long history as bitter enemies had taught Harry much about the blond and even though he had changed somewhat, had undeniably grown and matured since those days, he was still Draco Malfoy and his eyes still narrowed and flashed when he was confronted with something that displeased him greatly.  
Now he was doing exactly that. But he didn't seem angry, just uncomfortable and oddly conflicted and Harry remembered how nervous and reluctant the sensations coming from the blond had felt like right at the beginning of the temporary bond. Still it seemed wrong that something he had found so exhilarating, would disconcert Draco so much.

Thoughtfully and a little bit concerned he considered the blond Slytherin in the mirror, looking at their reflections over one of his pale shoulders – which were broader than normal with the additional wing muscles – right into the delicately chiselled features.

"Are you alright?" He asked hesitantly, wondering if the blond would mind the question – sometimes Slytherins seemed awfully intent on pretending they had no feelings at all aside from pride in themselves, their families and their way of life.  
But the few minutes of connectedness had taught him much about the two other teenagers, not least of all that they were not as cold and guarded and calculating as they purported to be. They were protective and supportive of each other and, oddly enough, of him. He had sensed in some way how angry Blaise had become over Snape, the odd sense of awareness that it concerned his former potions master and a sharp irritation had flashed through his mind like a blade of white hot fire and – he couldn't explain how or why – he had known that it was for his sake. And the gentle coaxing, the patient explanations… Draco's insecurity; no, all of this showed that they were far from being cold.

Still, as if his uttered words had provided him with the necessary incitement, Draco recovered his bearings and his expression evened out into a polite mask, still friendly, but closed. Harry almost sighed: obviously he had once again breached some etiquette rule no one had bothered to tell him about. His unrest took shape further, when Draco kept silent and his eyes averted.

Well, he thought, a mild annoyance rising within him, they had better not expect him to become the perfectly well-behaved, eloquent pure-blooded _actor_ , or the deal with Ives was off. He was not changing himself, not for just anyone and never if he didn't think it justified.

Something else flashed through his mind then as he remembered the conversation earlier with the other submissive now in light of the newly discovered, obvious reluctance of the two dominants before him: would Draco and Blaise unknowingly cancel the deal with Ives by making him leave? Both of them had seemed taken aback by the sensations coming through their connection at first and the way Draco reacted now made it clear that something was not quite right and that they hadn't expected the bond – the _temporary_ bond – between them to be that intense. Maybe the Slytherins, who treasured their masks and pretty facades so much, just couldn't deal with that level of exposure? Maybe they didn't desire the bond any longer?

That in itself might not be as bad, though he was starting to get along with them just fine right now, but if they had no real esteem for him as a person, if they just saw him as a submissive to be played with and exploited, they might retract their protection, send him away to his friends, whom Harry would endanger with his presence. Or was that a lie? God, he didn't know, he just didn't know and he didn't want to even chance to endanger them again after all they had been through in the past. If anyone deserved safety and peace right now, surely it was them…

Furthermore: who would teach him if they made him leave? Draco and Blaise had proven to be surprisingly competent in that regard and he did need them to harness his new powers or he himself would stay a danger to anyone in his presence. If he returned to his friends just now or to other allies, he would not only draw the attention of other Vykélari to them, make them targets, no, he would also force them into the presence of his highly powerful, highly volatile magic that might lash out in a moment's notice at anyone if he lost control.

Like it had done with Blaise.

Only that, during that particular afternoon, he had still been weak from magical exhaustion. How bad would it become if he was well rested?

There was so much he needed to learn. After listening to Ives that had become frighteningly clear.

And right now, with all these changes, all these problems piling up in front of him to mountainous dimensions, Lanai Manor was proving to be a better and more comfortable environment than anything he could have imagined. It was virtually dreamlike after living in a battle-scarred England, a reprieve for his mind that did him much good, he couldn't deny that, especially now, with the knowledge that he would be able to leave in time for the next term in Hogwarts easing his mind.

Would they make him…

"He is fine," Blaise said from behind him, reassuringly squeezing his shoulder for a moment, but Harry saw his deep, dark gaze flitting to his lover who still stood between Harry and the oversized mirror. Blaise was, of course, aware of his fiancé's doubts, too.

Would they make him leave? Of course Blaise had promised him a safe haven in Lanai Manor but could he trust him to keep it? Harry knew almost nothing about the dark skinned Italian, aside from the fact that he loved Draco dearly and that he would probably chose his side if the blond wanted Harry gone. And that was maybe a not so unlikely possibility: if he found he couldn't bear the sensations of a true mating bond, then he might perceive that as a personal failure and if Harry had learned anything about the Slytherin Ice Prince then it was that he hated reminders of his failures.  
Uncertain, Harry gazed at Draco, who smiled at him, but though it seemed honest and light, Harry was aware that the blond was nowhere near as calm and collected as he pretended to be.

_'Don't send me away!'_

"Nothing wrong, Harry, sweet." He said with disarming nonchalance before he reached out for him, and – raising and folding his wings so Harry could pass through beneath them, he steered him forwards by the gentle grip on his shoulder until Harry stood in front of him, encountering the steel grey eyes in the mirror. "Why don't you try to transform now?"

Long moments passed, while Harry tried to gauge the Slytherin's mood and his reaction. What would he do if they made him leave? Ives' words came to his mind, unbidden, baleful words:  
 _Dominants are allowed to collect you and use whatever method necessary to force you to mate. In some cases dominants did blackmail submissives into mateships by threatening loved ones and were never convicted. Who would you turn to, Mr Potter? Who would you willingly endanger?_

No one.

He was the Boy-Who-Had-Survived-Too-Many-Times-To-Count, the one who others looked to for protection. He wasn't supposed to need it in return and though he knew just how ridiculous that notion was, the feeling was there nonetheless.  
And, damn it, he had led his friends too often into danger. Hermione and Ron had a future with each other now to look forward to, they needed to live their own lives now that they had survived the war. It was not fair if he took that away from them again.

And he didn't think he could survive Ron turning from him once more. Of course they had all been influenced by that thrice damned locket when his best friend had left him and Hermione during the Horcrux hunt, and yet… it was probably better not to ask to begin with and be disappointed…

Harry couldn't turn to Ginny either, he had tried so hard to keep her away from dangers and problems that were _his_ to battle! How could he drag her or the other Weasleys into something of this dimensions so shortly after Riddle's demise? And Remus and Tonks had the little Ted to care for now, his godson.

Besides, if he had understood it correctly, they were not even legally allowed to protect him from other dominants. So the only thing he would achieve was endangering them with his own wonky magic and forcing them to infringe several laws out of loyalty.

No, in the end he needed to be honest with himself and admit that there was no one he wanted to get involved in this mess that was his life right now. Therefore he would be alone with this problems if Draco and Blaise decided not to help him any longer and so in consequence the uncomfortable truth was that he depended on them, on his former enemy who he had made peace with only a short time ago, and a Slytherin he still didn't really know. He hadn't wanted to accept it before, but with the conversation of Ives so fresh in his memory and the fear of being turned away, he had to acknowledge it nonetheless.

Well, at least it seemed that he had been given some reprieve. Blaise and Draco seemed intent on postponing all decisions until after the two of them had talked in private. Maybe it was a good sign that they (vainly) tried to keep him unaware of the problem and that they wanted to continue with the lesson instead of excusing themselves directly to discuss their next steps. As long as they covered it up, they would not take immediate action.

Shrugging once to dislodge the apprehension that had overcome him, Harry gave the blond a curt nod, turning his gaze, though not his full attention, towards his own reflection in the mirror.

He would fly. Maybe if he showed himself eager to learn, willing to yield to at least some of their wishes, maybe they'd allow him to stay until he could end this farce?

_'Not a farce!'_ Harry reminded himself fiercely, once again angry at his failure to stay objective. Well, he had never been _really_ good at that. Rationality and empathy had been Hermione's domain, to some extent at least. But now, he needed to be just that: he had promised Ives to give Draco and Blaise an _honest_ chance. And so an honest chance was what they'd get.

Taking a deep breath, Harry threw one short glance at the two Slytherins behind him, to see if they were as apprehensive as he was, but either they weren't or they were better at hiding it. Most likely it was a bit of both. Harry himself felt just more apprehensive now that his worries were breaking through the elation he had felt during their connection, causing it to dissipate like a construct of mist in a sudden breeze and he was slowly beginning to remember his own transformation, the nightmarish hours he had lived through and that were so hard to banish from his memory.

But he hadn't ever fled from Dementors, just because of the fear and desperation they evoked in him.

Maybe they had seen the uncertain flicker in his eyes, but the pale and the dark Slytherin both smiled at him with expressions Harry rather guessed were meant to be encouraging (he also guessed that they had had little exercise in such things), and Draco's slender fingers touched the points of his back at exactly the position corresponding to where he had earlier seen the new joints forming under Draco's pale skin. The fingers were gentle and of a soft texture, softer than his own were, but they moved with more intent and poise, pressing against his skin rather than caressing it, which Harry was glad for at that moment, the touch felt intimate enough as it was and he fought not to shiver.  
"Here, Harry." The blond murmured softly, the voice caressing like his fingers were not. "Don't think about the process, your magic has memorized it. Think only of the end result."

Without hesitation, Harry glanced up into stormy grey eyes and briefly he had to wonder if Draco really had found their connection that intolerable, surely he wouldn't willingly get so close to him now if that had been the case? Maybe it was just that overly pragmatic side he could from time to time exhibit: after completing the transformation and having showed Harry just what he and Blaise had intended to, after alleviating his apprehensions, maybe he had just not seen any use in maintaining the bond?  
But seeing as Draco really had been shaken – and Harry didn't think he had been mistaken in that observation – Harry thought that it was probably just another attempt to distract his mind and keep him from focusing too hard on his memories.

Feeling a little bit more grateful for the thoughtfulness, assuming it had been that, Harry wetted his lips and again took a deep breath, letting it slowly out in a steady stream until his lungs were empty and the knot in his chest had loosened somewhat. Then, he began to will forth his wings.

They would be heavy on his back, Harry remembered, not uncomfortably so, or like a real hindrance, but a noticeably weight, nonetheless. And green. A flashing green like the bolt of light that was an Avada Kedavra.  
'No, not quite', he thought, clenching his jaws together and frowning. A bit darker and lighter at the same time, deeper and richer. The many nuances interweaving almost playfully. They had encompassed him as he had lain on the ground in his bed chamber after awaking for the first time, like the protective cocoon of a silkworm, so soft.

They had mocked him then with their presence, because he had not wanted them to be there. Now he _did_.

_'You are going to emerge, because I_ will _you to!'_

Something shifted just below his shoulder blade, his magic maybe, coiling and moving endlessly like a nest of serpents, drawing together to get to work and he could feel Draco retracting his fingers, so that Harry's growing wings would not face any pressure at all, not encounter any resistance. He wondered if Draco had felt the jolt of magic just waiting under his tan skin.

_'Emerge_ now _!'_ He ordered.

And they did. His bones moved oddly against each other, not at all painfully, just in a weird, grating way that was neither pleasant nor really uncomfortable.

"Slowly, Harry." Blaise reminded him, mildly, just as Harry was about to decide that he didn't need to draw this out as much as Draco had. He really didn't want to see featherless wings erupt from his own back, regardless of whether his instructors had found his disgust amusing… it reminded him too much of a plucked chicken.  
But Blaise was right, he didn't want his bones to pierce his skin, either.

Before he could draw a conscious decision, however, he could feel a steady pressure against the skin of his back and knew from when he had been observing Draco so closely that the growing bones of his wings would dent out the skin, make it grow with it. As if in fast motion, he saw his wings extend, quickly, so quickly! His heart beat a little bit faster in his chest.  
For a moment Harry was tempted to look away from the mirror that reflected his transformation, and which withheld nothing from him as he saw the skinny appendages that clearly showed where the bones ran, surrounded by a layer of different muscles that he would have to learn to address correctly in flight. But then, feathers appeared – small and downy at first, covering the whole of his still growing wings. The expression 'tarred and feathered' flashed briefly through his mind, making him erupt into a broad grin, but that stage only lasted for a moment and Harry felt his grin soften into a smile as his feathers lengthened and firmed up, locking together at the edges to form a smooth surface that could resist the heavy pressures of the winds.

Then, his wings were complete, though they were shorter as he remembered them being, Harry thought, with almost neat edges, and sharp tips. And they _glowed_ in the sun, that was still standing behind them and thus infused the green feathers with a golden light, lending them a halo, like sunlight through leaves, and a sense of otherworldliness almost.

Harry pressed his lips together, so that his grin might not become too goofily wide. He had done it. Here his wings were, in flesh and blood literally, his flesh and blood, and it hadn't hurt at all.

Behind him, Draco spread his pale feathered, downy wings in such a way that they seemed to frame Harry's own, smaller but sharper ones in hat huge mirror. It made quite a striking combination, Harry had to admit, that silver grey, almost white and that intense green. They could have been Slytherin colours, but the nuances were not quite right: too pale, too luminous and too varied; so Harry could endure the fleeting comparison without too much annoyance, even without a frown.

"Beautifully done, Harry." Blaise said behind them. He ducked down and crawled through the gap beneath their combined wings and the roof to come to stand in front of them, a wide, honestly happy smile lighting his features and a teasing glint in his eyes, which were, with the sunlight flooding them directly from behind Harry and Draco, of a brightly glowing amber. "If I may say so: that was certainly a more elegant transformation than Draco usually carries out!"

The offended Slytherin merely gave an annoyed huff, lifted his own feathered wings and shifted them forwards as if he intended to embrace Harry and Blaise in them, but he stopped in time, letting them hover over the two of them like a protective barrier instead. He didn't grace his fiancé with a single glance as he stepped closer to the boy in front of him, trying awkwardly to draw him in a loose hug from behind – which presented itself as quite a difficult task, seeing as Harry's still respectable, though smaller, wings were in the way. Finally he settled with putting his hands on Harry's slim hip and laying his chin on his shoulder.

"I knew you of all people wouldn't let yourself be held back by memories." He whispered into the younger Gryffindor's ear, staring at the submissive's reflection in something akin to warm pride, but Harry could hear the smug smile in his voice.

That didn't annoy Harry as much as it would have only some days ago; no, instead he savoured the praises coming from people who, Harry thought, would surely be very parsimonious with such words usually. At least he couldn't imagine them giving random compliments to their friends.  
But Harry reminded himself that that didn't have to mean anything, after all they were trying to beguile him and so he raised his chin, defiantly, only half-jokingly and with an unvoiced challenge flashing in his eyes he said in an exact replica of Draco's haughtiest tone of voice "I won't let myself be held back by anything … or anyone." And left the _'And don't you ever try to again!'_ unspoken.

And as if to prove it – his independence and his stubborn will – and of course, to show off a little bit as well as sating his own nagging curiosity at what he looked like, he demanded his magic to answer to him and bring forth all the other Vykélari traits that he hadn't allowed his body to show since the full moon. With a lazy head-shake, silky, emerald feathers burst through his thick, black locks, as if they had hidden beneath and between his tresses and the single shaking of his head had made them fall from their hiding places and reveal themselves. They mussed up his hair even further, disrupting what little order he and a brush had enforced on them earlier that morning, and made the skin on his head tingle pleasantly with the magic that had gathered there and from the new physical presence of each feather.  
At the same time the skin around his eyes paled, and it was that same sparkling ultraviolet, a colour that he had never seen on himself but had discovered on several plants in the gardens and even in some of the portraits and paintings of the manor. It emphasized his eyes and made them glow now: gems of leaf green surrounded by an almost white. Fascinated he reached up to touch the appearing mask, wondering what the skin now felt like, only to have Blaise gently grasp his wrist, shaking his head mildly.  
"Your claws, Harry." He reminded, and Harry had the sudden feeling that there was a new depth to his voice, that it was slower somehow and … and knowing that the Italian's voice shouldn't be so distinctly audible, not when he was speaking so softly, made Harry realise that the transformation was also affecting his hearing very noticeably. He hadn't realised just how much it did in the hospital, not having had a direct comparison available, but now… well, he should have know, after all hadn't he been told that the manor had sound-proof walls for the sole reason that Vykélari with their extraordinary hearing could still find peace and quiet within it and to offer privacy to its inhabitants and save rooms for secret conversations?

In any case, Blaise was right: each of his fingers ended in the dark greyish, almost one and a half inch long talons. He had been shocked and even a little bit devastated the last time he had seen them upon waking in the manor, but now with the certain knowledge that he would be able to retract them, they didn't bother him quite as much, aside from being a real hindrance all the time whenever he tried to touch something.

He nodded curtly to Blaise to let him know that he had understood and taken the warning but as he tore away his gaze from the deadly poisonous talons, his attention was immediately drawn back to his own reflection, visible over the dark Italian's shoulder: from his temples, starting from beyond his hairline, several green lines, varying in their thickness and brightness, flowed over his brow, in swirls and curls along his forehead, eye-lids and cheek-bones, encompassing his wide green eyes like a Victorian filigree mask, never leaving the blurred band of ultraviolet around his eyes that in its brightness drew even more attention to the unusual mask.  
It gave him a – for him – strangely exotic appearance, handsome, yes, but exotic and unfamiliar. Harry didn't quite know yet if he liked it, so different was it, but he guessed he would get used to it, in time.

Turning his gaze away, and, remembering the other markings that had graced his body the last time he had transformed, Harry carefully leaned sideways to gaze around Blaise's broad back at the reflection of his sides in the mirror, where another set of lines grew from his hip upwards, from beneath Draco's pale hands, which tightened on the markings.  
Annoyed, Harry swatted at them, leaving it to Draco to keep himself from being scratched. This was really taking too many liberties.

"Keep your hands to yourself!" he demanded, or tried to demand, really, since all that came out of his mouth was the hoarse, scolding screech of an enraged crow.  
Exasperatedly Harry mused, he should be starting to get used to that: whenever he really tried to give it to his hosts straight, his new body didn't let him. His own body. How typical.

He settled for glaring at Blaise instead, who was obviously fighting not to laugh, the strain of the effort making his lips twitch (he didn't want to look at Draco right then, as he barely covered his chuckles with suspicious coughing), while he concentrated on human words again. Moments later, Harry transformed his syrinx back into his human voice box, only barely feeling the slight shift in his throat.

"You!" He hissed at Blaise, noticing with satisfaction that clearly discernible, firmly spoken words darted from his lips "Stop smirking. And you!" he continued, this time glaring at the pale blond. "Stop laughing, and keep your hands to yourself!"

"I'm sorry, Harry." Blaise said, still smiling. "It's just…"

"… oh, so funny. Yes, I know!" Harry growled. But he wasn't really angry, he might have even laughed himself, if their positions had been reversed; but well, it was starting to grate on his nerves that they were so much more knowledgeable in all these Vykélari … things … matters … whatever.  
"Didn't we want to fly? Will you show me how, or not?" He asked impatiently.

"Of course, if you wish." Blaise relented amiably and nodded towards Draco, who finally tamed his chuckles into a grin and vanished the mirror with a lazy wave of his wand. Almost, Harry did regret it not being there any more: firstly, he was no longer able to see what Draco was doing behind his back, and secondly… well, he somehow felt that there were still so many things to discover with his body's new appearance and he hadn't quite looked his fill yet.

There would be time later for that, however.

Not having anything else to look at, Harry turned to Blaise, who now regarded him once more earnestly and with an almost tender expression. "I am glad that you were able to transform completely. You already went a long way to overcome what you went through that night and I hope the memories won't trouble you further."

Awkwardly, Harry lowered his gaze, flushing faintly from shame and embarrassment and searched futilely for anything to answer. He had never wanted to appear weak in front of the two Slytherins, never wanted them to see that losing his magic and encountering such levels of agony and fear when he hadn't known what was happening had achieved what Voldemort and his followers never had in all those years. But although he had known that this would be the consequence of asking after the transformation and the pain he had felt, he had needed the reassurance. And they hadn't batted an eye-lash and they were not mocking or teasing him, but they _knew_ , and that was bad enough.  
To add to his embarrassment, the Italian was not yet finished. "If they do, don't hesitate to speak up right away or to search us out. _Whenever_." He added with emphasis.

Harry kept silent and bit his lips, hoping that his cheeks weren't as red as they felt like. He would certainly not go to them and ask for help _whenever_. Nonetheless he murmured a barely discernible "Okay." And hoped that would suffice… Merlin, he had never known Slytherins could be so prone to worrying and protectiveness.   
… Maybe that old Sorting Hat was wiser than students usually gave it credit for, Harry could still remember the first song he had heard, treasuring the memory: _'Or perhaps in Slytherin you'll make your real friends'_ … A tight-knit group they were, those Snakes. But he almost had to smirk a little bit as he looked at Blaise and Draco. _Real friends_ , huh?

But the longer the silent moment between them lasted, the less amused and the more fidgety Harry became, until Draco nudged his shoulder and said teasingly. "The proper thing to say would be 'thank you'."

"Git!" Harry grumbled only half-earnestly and glared over his shoulder at Draco's grinning form, making both of the other young men laugh out. But the awkward moment at least was gone.

"Now Harry," Blaise began, and led the Gryffindor to the middle of the roof, facing south-east. "We'll teach you to fly."

At those words, Harry's heart made a distinct leap and now he really felt reminded of the day he had first flown on a broom on the grounds of Hogwarts, without any gloomy thoughts of pain remembered; with the transformation now behind him, all he felt was the nervous excitement, the fear of embarrassing himself, of failing, the anticipation of being free of the ground and do something that mankind had always dreamt of: flying.  
Just like the eleven years old child he had been then, still amazed at everything magical.

"I guess you noticed that your wings are smaller and sharper tipped than when you first transformed?" Blaise asked and Harry nodded immediately, even though he had only seen his wings once from up close, cocooning him and only for some short minutes, yet the difference was palpable. Literally.

"So we can change the shape of our wings." He said pointlessly, only to show he was still listening, still following.

"Yes." Draco nodded, once again falling into his teacher-role, eager to give his charge more of an understanding of what it entailed to be a Vykélari. "You opted now for wings that are well suited for a high speed flight. But flying with these will cost you much energy, either magical or physical. Different shapes are suitable for different aspects of flight, you know. Long, narrow wings are well-suited for a slow, gliding flight and soaring. Short, curved wings that are broad and have a roughly elliptical shape make for an agile flight. And now, if you'd lengthen the outer feathers and spread them to get slots in between them, you'd be able to glide for hours – if the wind is favourable and your magic strong enough, which of course won't be a problem for you. Well, and they will support an easier take-off, so I'd advise you to lengthen the primary feathers… that are the ones on the outer side, at the wing tip." he added when Harry blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

Curious, Harry pulled his wings closer, bending them and folding them inwards so that he could directly scrutinize the feathers. They were fascinating to look at, that he had to admit and he couldn't help but flap a little bit up and down, watching with rapt attention how the feathers curved and strained against the resistance of the air, how they caught the light and let it burn over them in flashes of green flames.

Blaise smiled at him, and seeing the warm approval in his expression, Harry remembered how disappointed the Italian had been when he had insisted on his natural – well, his _human_ – sight. It seemed strange that it had been so important for him and Draco even then, that Harry himself should find pleasure in the smallest things his inheritance had bestowed upon him without being asked. He filed that thought away for a later time when he would have the leisure to ponder it more thoroughly, when Blaise spoke.  
"They are of an exceptionally beautiful colour, colibrí mio."

Briefly Harry wondered if he should take offence at being compared to such a tiny bird – the similarity to the word colibri, the hummingbird was easy enough to grasp – but then he discarded the thought again in favour of more important matters: "How do I change the shape?"

"Just like anything else, with will." Draco answered and then went to show Harry the exact wing shape to adapt. Only moments later, the green feathers shifted and grew along with the complete structure of his green wings until Harry stood there with the wings of an eagle raised high above his head.

"That's it!" Draco said with evident eagerness. "Now you are properly equipped. And so we finally get to the fun part: the flying." Draco harrumphed slightly and automatically Blaise and Harry raised an equally exasperated look.

"What you have to understand first," Draco said pragmatically, reacting to the raised eyebrows with nothing more than the merest tightening around his pale lips, "is that humans, even those with wings, are physically unable to fly except under the most fortunate conditions."

"Draco!" Blaise scolded and Harry, feeling rather confused at that statement, saw him frown at his fiancé somewhat fiercely.  
"Ignore him." He then said to Harry, soothingly. "Technically, he is right, but I don't want you to concentrate too much on what is happening. Sometimes instincts are much more reliable than logic. And I think you are more like me in that respect: trust your body."

"It helped me!" The blond objected in that tone of voice someone would use when bringing forth the ultimate argument to end a discussion.

"Well, love, not everyone works like you." Blaise gave a crooked smile with such exasperated affection it made Harry bite his lower lip to suppress his amusement, especially when the blond cocked his head in mock affront, and declared with the haughty poise of the perfect Malfoy heir, "But the best do!"

" _Anyway_ ," Blaise rolled his eyes and then focused on Harry again. "The basics are pretty technical: when air is flowing over your wings, the form of your wings causes the air beneath your wing to be accelerated and directed downwards. It is compressed which increases the pressure, while the air is directed upwards above your wing, thus reducing the pressure. That gives you lift and enables you to glide." He summed up.  
Harry blinked. What was it with Slytherins trying to explain all the theory behind the most simplest of things instead of just _doing_ them? Honestly, they would so get along with Hermione if only they would change their attitudes and start speaking normally with muggleborns.

"To achieve enough lift to get off the ground, however, you need to get the air to flow very quickly over your wings. And while that technically is not possible for someone as heavy as a human because you can't run quickly enough while bowed forwards so that your wings are in a horizontal position, you can – being conveniently a wizard – accelerate the air instead. And being a Vykélari, you can do that wand- and wordlessly and even without thinking too much. After all, it only affects the air in the direct contact with your wings and your magic can handle that subconsciously. And if you change that thin layer of air, the surrounding wind currents are affected also."

"A-huh." Harry swallowed. He hadn't concerned himself with physics since entering the wizarding world at the age of eleven and to be honest, he had somewhat stopped following Blaise's explanations when the Italian had started to talk about different pressure levels.

"Don't worry, it's not important to understand that." Blaise continued, throwing a stern glance towards Draco who was pressing his lips together firmly to keep silent and had crossed his arms over his chest. He obviously didn't feel comfortable with the 'grit-your-teeth-and-get-to-it'-approach, Harry thought, not really surprised.  
"I didn't either, not really until I felt for myself what my cousin was trying to explain to me."

"Right." Harry said and kneaded the knuckles of his wand-hand, not quite convinced, yet very much determined to forget about pressures and lift for now and to fly like he had always flown on a broom: by instinct.

"Now come, Harry," Blaise said with a last encouraging glance at him before he turned and faced south-east, the coastline to his right. Harry followed, moving into the Italian's wake, Draco behind them.

With little ado, Blaise planted himself firmly on the roof top, his feet digging into the ground. In no longer than a few seconds his coppery wings burst from his back, spreading out behind him. They had also changed since the last time Harry had seen them: they were long now, and sharp-tipped and narrow like those of a sea gull.

It suited him better than the broad ones he had had when they had been swimming in the sea, Harry thought, as much as he seemed to love water.

A moment later the dark Italian leaned forwards slightly into the balmy wind, his wings curved to catch the currents, the feathers curling and bending backwards in the light breeze.  
"Always turn into the headwind!" he said, the huge appendages flapping almost lazily, the muscles flexing with well-practiced ease as he prepared to take off. The fabric of the shirt he still wore and which he had magically cut two slits into to make room for the two new limbs, stretched with every movement, every steady beat of is wings.

"You might want to magically lighten your body so that your wings won't have to carry quite as much weight. But don't overdo it, you need a certain weight or the wind will make you his new plaything." Draco interrupted from behind them and as if in reaction to his comment, Harry could see Blaise's stance shifting: the Italian leaned forwards into the headwind and his feet dug further into the ground to keep himself still; his wings kept beating steadily now, as he fought against the wind that was now a considerable force against the wide plane of his wings and his reduced weight.

His voice, though, was still unmoved, still unstrained as he addressed Harry next. "Then imagine wind flowing over your wings … and leap!"  
A sudden gust hit Harry hard as he was standing not far behind Blaise, and he had to narrow his eyes as it mercilessly whipped into his face. The dark Italian meanwhile had indeed jumped up into the air that caught him with open arms, it seemed, cradling the lean body in its currents, carrying him steadily upwards and still the wind was beating around him. Only its effect on Harry and Draco, still standing on the roof garden, diminished gradually as Blaise was borne farther and farther away from them.

With a silly, excited smile Harry followed him with his eyes, watching as the copper-winged teen started to circle above them for a minute before he began his slow decent towards the two of them again.

"I'll stay behind you." The blond reassured, coming up behind the brunet. "And levitate you when you lose control."

Harry looked over his shoulder at the other young man, still a teenager like himself, but matured before his time. Draco had his wand firmly in his hand, rolling it between his slender fingers. The thought that this very hawthorn wand had been directed at him numerous times in ill intent did not even cross his mind, only the surety that it – hawthorn and unicorn hair – and its master would not let him fall. He smiled, but also raised an eyebrow at the doubt in his flying abilities that Draco was portraying. Again. One would think Slytherins should have a steeper learning curve.

But Draco only shook his head lightly and explained. "Flying with your own wings is much more difficult than on a broom, which only requires you to sit steady upon it and not fidget. I expect you to fall at one point or the other today. Everyone does during their first flying lesson."

"You, too?"

"Of course." Draco nodded. "More than once in fact, I assure you. So don't take it to heart if you don't get it right the first few times or even today at all. We'll simply try again and practice with you until we can hunt for the snitch together."  
He tilted his head, his eyes and smirk flashing a challenge. "I'd like that."

Harry laughed. "I bet! Then I'll just have to see to it that you won't have to wait too long. And you should brace yourself for a sound trashing, Malfoy!"

Draco frowned a little bit offended. "Are we back to surnames, now?"

"Only when we are competing." Harry answered unconcernedly with a dismissive gesture. "You know, sometimes it's as if you had two different personalities: Malfoy, the prat who lives to make me miserable and Draco the … well, the … the _other extreme_ …"  
And before any expression on the blond's face – be it surprise, mirth or offence … or that ever present haughty smirk – could make him regret that remark and cause him to flush even further, Harry turned into the headwind and spread his wings wide. It didn't save him from Draco's clear laughter, though, that rang through the air.

"No part of me lives to make you miserable nowadays. But to say that some part of me always lived to get your attention, now that just might have some truth to it."

Surprised, Harry turned, but before any further inquiry could have made it past his lips, Draco had already clapped his hands and stepped forward. "Well then, _Harry_ ," he drawled, his eyes still sparkling with laughter. "If monsieur would like to continue now…" And with an elegant, expansive gesture he invited Harry to proceed.

* * *

  
In the end Draco was right: It took him a little bit to figure out how to take off, mostly because the success depended largely on the strength of the lightening charm he used on himself wand- and wordlessly, an accomplishment he was rather proud of but which, Blaise told him, he would be able to do rather easily and without much training as long as the magic stayed close to his body. As soon as the effects were more far reaching however, Harry would most likely still need his wand for as long as he stayed without a mate to help him control his magic.  
For now though, the exact strength for the lightening charm caused Harry enough problems: if he became too light, he had not enough to counter the wind with, and once he started the sudden gust that was supposed to let him reach sufficient "lift", as Draco and Blaise called it, he was simply blown backwards (and Draco really had to catch him the one time or the other); but if his charm was too weak, he was too heavy to get off the ground.

But after a few failed attempts, and much frustration on Harry's part, he managed to really leave the ground of the roof garden for the first time.

Like during his previous tries, Harry spread his wings wide and forced his already burning muscles into the repetitive, vigorous flapping movements that were so exhausting – he had never thought that air alone would put up so much resistance.  
Forward and down he pushed his wings, the air pressing against them insistently, and then he pulled them up again, felt the outer feathers rotate slightly like the slats of a jalousie. It broke the integrity of his wings and made upward movements so much easier than the downward stroke, as the air could simply flow through in between the feathers.

But the feather rotation felt weird.

Up and down, up and down, smoothly, steadily. And then he reduced his weight, wished himself to be lighter. He did that gradually until he knew that with much force, he would theoretically be able to get off the ground with several strong beats. But he wouldn't. He didn't have the strength anymore, because Blaise and Draco had been right and using muscles he had never used before was just so damn exhausting…  
Almost he didn't feel the tingling of magic, barely perceptible, rushing into his wings, but he was becoming better now with sensing the currents of his own magic. It was a pulsing, desiring thing, wanting to be used so strongly that it kept reacting to his thoughts. Now it flowed into his muscles like an energetic balm, trickling into them continuously until they prickled and heated and were soothed and energized all the same. And then it wasn't only the power of his muscles beating, it was all of him, all of what was Harry, his wings, his magic, his body moved smoothly with each flap.

It was then that he knew he was ready. Wind through his hair, on his wings, ruffling the feathers. The image was in his mind only a fracture of a second before the sensations were on his body. A wind took hold, no gust. He didn't need something so sudden, he needed something more stable and in contrast to the two dominants, his magic was powerful enough to keep up more than just a short gust and do that again and again and again without much effort. It wished fervently to do more, so he let it.

And he kept flapping.

His feet were almost skidding over the ground, he had to reduce the wind and when it did without him consciously making it do so, Draco called out to him "Now, Harry!" and Harry jumped, leaped forward, letting his whole weight fall into the air currents that he himself was producing. They kept pressing against him and he kept his wings rigid and with the artificial air stream flowing so steadily around him he was able to hover on the spot, against the wind.

That was not enough. Harry wanted to fly, not hover, not soar or glide. On his broom, he had always enjoyed fast flying more than the calm, slow rounds some did for relaxation and this wasn't going to change anytime soon.

Harry reduced the wind and flapped his wings downward with all force, propelling himself forward, ever forward and with a velocity that surprised him. His heart skipped a beat when he passed the edge of the roof top and almost he lost his balance from the short flutter of nervousness. There was nothing beneath him, no broom to hold onto, and the ground was far… if he fell, if his wings faltered… But he knew that Blaise was in front of him, and Draco still stood on the roof, his wand out, watching him like a hawk and they would keep him safe and why shouldn't he risk it?

With the wind no longer whipping into his face and against his wings, Harry used all the strength he had, the combined forces of magic and muscles, to gain height and speed. It wasn't easy. The natural currents were much more unpredictable than he had anticipated. He kept faltering for short moments, whenever he flew right through warmer regions and his stomach seemed to drop as the thermal lifted him upwards. But, god, he loved that feeling! He laughed and cheered and flapped stronger. Now he knew what Blaise had meant when they told him the differences in pressure would raise him

"Harry! Harry! Not so high!" Someone shouted from behind him. It was probably Draco, since a moment later Blaise was at his side, ten metres away from him to his right, flapping furiously to keep up with Harry, who still pressed magic into his own wings to force them to continue the vigorous flight that his own muscles would never have supported. This was exhilarating.

"No!" he shouted back, grinning like a madman, and he wasn't sure if it was the magic intoxicating him or the flying. The wind rushed through his hair, letting the brilliant green feathers flutter violently, it whipped over his face, making his eyes tear up, it flowed over his wings, through the feathers, bending them, curving them. And his magic _sung_! God, it was pure elation. It had never been so much a part of him than it was right at this very moment, exulting in being used for something this wonderful.  
There never had been anything better.

"Don't fly further Harry!" Blaise called over, sounding alarmed. "You'll pass the wards soon!"

Immediately Harry slowed a bit and looked down. He was surprised to see the sea roll in waves towards the shore directly beneath them. They glittered in the sunlight like a carpet of gems and crystal. It looked so surreal from this height.

Then Harry turned his gaze upwards and really, he could almost see the slight flicker in the air; in any case he could feel them if he concentrated enough: A persistent pressure that prickled against his skin, that caused him to recoil. The wards. Which he wasn't allowed to pass. Which he had been _ordered_ not to pass.  
A rebellious sparkle rose in him and for a moment he wished he could heed it, just because Blaise had been such a bastard about it all and still hadn't apologized or taken back his stupid rules. But that would mean leaving the two dominants and that he couldn't do.

Nonetheless: if he went into a plummet from this height and passed the wards with such a velocity, then surely no House Elf would be able to react in time. He remembered that the fastest bird could dive … well, okay he didn't really remember how fast, but it was very fast, too quick a target for a House Elf to possibly hit with a stunner. That meant he wasn't necessarily dependant on Ives Malfoy's goodwill… when the time came for him to leave, he would be able to do so. But that time was not now and with how happy he felt at that very moment, Harry thought that that time could gladly stay in the far future where it belonged.

"Please, Harry, let's head back!"

Harry nodded, ready to set his feet back on solid ground. He was getting really tired and needed to push more and more magic into his wings; he knew as soon as he pulled it back, he would probably not be able to lift the wings even one more time. Tomorrow he would probably feel all stiff and aching.

He followed Blaise in a slow zigzag descent, turning alternately into and away from the headwind until they reached the roof top. The landing though was trickier than Harry had anticipated and he might have crashed hard onto the ground, had not Draco caught him with a quick levitation charm and set him down gently.

Immediately Harry let his wings melt back into the skin of his back, glad that their weight was literally lifted from his shoulders. Only then did he let the magic go that infused his muscles and almost cringed at the weariness that took its place, striking home with brutal force. He allowed himself to plop down, then, having neither the will nor the strength to stay upright.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked concernedly and rushed forward to kneel at Harry's side.

"Yeah." Harry smiled exhaustedly. "Just tired."

"Good!"

Blinking up at the smirking Slytherin questioningly, Harry wondered what he had done wrong now to cause this latest change in attitude. From concern to what … gloating? In less than three seconds.

"If you had flown like this when it was only your first time and you hadn't been bone-weary afterwards, my ego would have been badly bruised."  
Snorting, Harry let himself fall backwards. How typical.

"What he means to say is: well done." Blaise translated with a smile as he, too sat down next to his fiancé and the young Gryffindor. "But you really shouldn't depend so much on your magic, Harry. You should train those muscles."

"What do you think I did? If I hadn't used my muscles, my bag wouldn't hurt so much."

For a moment there was silence and Harry tilted his head up to see the two Slytherins share a smile and a glance beneath hidden lashes that to him seemed oddly ominous…

His premonition proved to be well-founded when Blaise leaned over him, supporting himself on one hand, while bringing the other up to brush Harry's hair aside from his sweaty brow. "I have just the prefect remedy against that."

Oh-oh. "I don't like back-rubs." Harry hastened to get out, guessing that this was what the Italian was hinting at and before either he or Draco could inquire for the reasons or insist, he rushed on. "It's not something a warm bath couldn't do equally as well. And anyway, I'm more tired than anything. And hungry."

But Blaise didn't draw back, still leaning over him and staring into his green eyes as if he could see right through them and into his soul. 'Is he a legilimens?' Harry wondered but then abandoned that theory as soon as it had taken shape in his head. If it were true, he would already have known about the letter he had written to Hermione and Ron.

Oh, shit. Harry felt once again as if he had flown into one of these warm air currents that made his stomach do flip-flops, though right now not in a good way. The letter. He had almost forgotten that thrice damned spawn of his thoughtless impulsiveness.

He probably should tell them, but… to be honest, he was a little bit afraid of their reaction.  
His thoughts were interrupted by Draco's smooth voice. "Why don't we have a snack then and get ourselves cleaned up and afterwards, we'll see about that massage."

With the memory of his hopefully small transgression heavy on his mind, Harry didn't object even at the mention of the back-rub he had just refused. He felt positively horrible when, while they were waiting for the House Elves to bring them their meal and then while eating, both Blaise and Draco attempted to draw him into light conversations about all kinds of things, like what he had done during the past two months or what he planned on becoming job-wise. Draco even asked about his cousin Nymphadora, much to Harry's surprise, whom he had never met. Yet he was too distracted for small-talk and didn't feel able at all to come up with astute or witty remarks or even remotely sophisticated answers.  
But nonetheless they didn't allow their conversation to become awkward, telling him about themselves instead when it became obvious that Harry was not feeling very talkative. It was no surprise for him that both boys had a major interest for politics, and neither that both of them did not intend to engage in them openly for at least some years. The Malfoy name was still linked to Voldemort and it would take time and effort until it commanded more than fear, until it was backed by more than wealth; and the Zabinis, while remaining neutral had now allied with the Malfoys through the engagement of both families' heirs.

"Though the magic in the mark died with its creator, and even though it is hidden beneath a glamour, it is there, and people will remember." Draco said, gesturing to his left forearm, and Harry had to admit it was true. The Malfoys were still powerful enough in the right circles to evade punishment – mainly because of the money that backed them and the knowledge that the family would most likely come to power again after some years and then remember its benefactors. But no politician could allow himself to appear too friendly right now with the fallen, dark families or risk losing the support of the wizarding community.

Not very good prerequisites for political careers. Instead Draco considered following into Severus' footsteps and becoming a potions master, though magical theory fascinated him enough to maybe become a charms inventor. Blaise rather felt drawn to the Unspeakables, he admitted to Harry. All the silence and mysteries…

"And you, Harry? No idea at all?" Blaise asked, gently coaxing. They had asked before but Harry had evaded the question and they had told him of their plans instead. Of course, Harry knew that it would be only polite to reciprocate, but…

"I don't know." He said, picking at the rest of his meal: fillet of beef (since he had been declared well-rested enough from his magical exhaustion that his stomach wouldn't protest) with a nearly black coloured gravy made of boiled down and spiced balsamic vinegar and an ensemble of fried vegetables.  
"I mean since the not-quite-real professor Moody said I'd be a good Auror, I wanted to become just that and I picked my courses just to be able to follow that path. But I'm not so sure anymore. And I'm not so sure if he was right. He was a mad imposter after all and wanted to get me killed." He attempted a weak smile but neither Blaise nor Draco returned it.  
"I've done enough fighting for this wizarding world. You know, I never fought for them, I just fought to keep my friends save, because if Voldemort had won, Hermione would have been dead, and Ron, and all my muggleborn friends. And Luna and Neville. And what would have happened to Hagrid?"

With a sigh Harry laid down his fork. "But there is so much wrong with our society, and I'm sick of fighting for a sick world."

"If you mean the slander during school, Harry," Draco said, unusually subdued and not meeting his eyes, "you should know that much of that came from me."

"Oh, Draco, no. I mean yes, but no." Harry blinked, maybe he should order his thoughts before speaking. "Well, I mean I know that many of the rumours came from you, but damn it, so many of the wizards were stupid enough to listen to the prattling of a fourteen year old teenager! No offence." He added as an afterthought. "But your lies were just so obvious…"

Draco grinned crookedly. "None taken, I was inexperienced and young. Of course, any smear campaign I started now would be much subtler and cleverer, be assured."

"You had better not do that again!"

"Oh, I wouldn't, Harry. Aside from the fact that it would be political suicide if I tried to slander you, I sort of start to like you." Draco said, from under lowered lashes.

Harry was far from impressed. "Against anyone, Draco!"

At that, Draco's gaze turned just that bit sharper and he sat up straighter. "If someone hurt a member of my family, or a close friend… or _you_ , Harry, I would arrange it so that they would not be able to show their face in any respectable circle _ever_ again, maybe lose their job and depending on the severity of his crime, I would see that the one or the other curse reached its target untraceably."

"But…"

"That is how it is, how I am. I might be persuaded by the injured party to refrain from the curses, though, and find other measures of revenge."

"Harry," Blaise started gently, "this is a very common concept. The family of your best friend is pureblood. They, too, have engaged in blood feuds and…"

"But that is what I mean!" Harry exclaimed, "I don't want to defend the laws of a society where vigilantism is so common that it isn't even punished! Or where it is possible for a single family to play puppet master for the minister…" He said, with a nasty glance at Draco, leaving no doubt as to which family he meant. "… a man so powerful that he can singlehandedly decide over the fate of any wizard without anyone to stop him, without any legal means to defend oneself. Like … like throwing people into Azkaban without trial, or pardoning anyone just because he feels like it!"

Harry calmed a little bit at the shocked expressions he encountered. He had let himself be carried away for a moment, he knew it, and yet…

"In a land where the ministry can regulate what the press writes, where they … Merlin! You remember Umbridge?" He asked, not waiting for an answer. "She used a Blood Quill on me so often that the scars are going to be with me for the rest of my life. She was going to use the Cruciatus on me! You were there, Draco, you were there! You heard her confess to sending the Dementors after me, to kiss me! What a country is this where such a person is not prosecuted?" Tiredly he looked away from Draco's bowed head and Blaise's anguished face.

"I hate this." He murmured.

"I'm so sorry." Draco whispered.

"Oh Merlin, please, Draco! Stop apologizing! I don't want all our conversations to end in apologies…"

"No, Harry, I'm sorry! I'm sorry not only that I would have allowed her to do that to you, but that I wasn't even sorry then. I had never seen it used on a human being before, never felt it myself. I… I'm not above ruining my enemies in a purely materialistic sense, but that, things like that… I wouldn't do that. Not anymore, not since I know…"

Harry reached out for him, a smile on his lips that was painful to watch, and he clasped the blond's pale hand in his for a moment. It was the first contact he had initiated himself between them, a fact that at that moment only Blaise realised. "I know, Draco. And the worst is: I cannot even fault you for that vigilantism mentality. Since you cannot go to the Ministry and be sure that a complaint or report will actually be investigated, you have to counter grievances against you or your family yourself. Nowadays a wizard in England cannot be sure that a crime will be punished by those who should enforce the law. I understand that. But it is wrong! It's so wrong on so many levels… I don't want to be an Auror if this is what I'll be defending."

"Then do something against it." Blaise murmured, drawing all attention immediately towards himself. Harry, he noted a little bit amused, looked mildly horrified at the suggestion, while Draco's eyes were starting to regain their gleaming brilliance.

He continued quietly, making sure to keep eye contact with Harry, trying to portray his sincerity. "You are a war hero. _The_ war hero of the Second Wizarding War. People will listen to you, stand behind you, follow you. They will follow a powerful wizard who won't exploit his powers."

Harry grimaced. "I suck at politics, Blaise. Really I do. And I have no idea how to handle press and…"

"But I do." Draco declared and stood up, gazing down at Harry with an air of solemnity around him.  
"If you chose to go that path, be assured of my advice and funding. You need only ask for it. And I am sure together with Granger it won't be difficult to determine whether any advice I might give you will be true or not."

Harry shook his head, a little bit ruefully. "Hermione's not good at such campaigns either… I don't know, were you in Slytherin aware of her attempt to free House Elves, forcibly if necessary?"

Blaise shook his head, his eyebrows all but vanished beneath his hair; Draco gaped.  
Hmm. That probably meant no.

"Don't ask." Harry said. "She is one of the smartest people I ever met, but she has no idea how the minds of normal people work. Truly."  
Then he bit his lips, glancing up to the Slytherin. "But you know, it's okay, I don't think you would deceive me." And Harry was a little bit surprised that he actually meant that.

Something fiery flashed through Draco's expression, something very, very pleased and smug and biting his lower lip he leaned down until he was at the same level as Harry's windblown head, their faces mere inches apart. "I would kiss you for that, mon doux rossignol, if I thought you'd welcome it."

For a moment a totally crazed part of Harry wanted to ask 'who said I wouldn't?', but he managed to stop himself in time. Honestly, what was he thinking? Or not thinking …

"And if you weren't so sweaty… " Draco added with a grin as he straightened himself. "think about it, Harry. Now: why don't we all have a bath or a shower?"

His eyes flitted towards his fiancé and there must have been some form of silent communication between them, because Blaise gave a curt nod before standing himself and pulling Harry to his feet. "I'll accompany you to your rooms."

Harry didn't quite know what he was supposed to think of this new development. He a politician? Merlin…  
A little bit dazed, and still horrified at the very notion of 'going that path', he nodded at Draco, whose face lit with a brilliant smile; then he watched him stride away, leaving an emotional jumble in his wake.  



	16. A Conversation Between Malfoys

Quickly, Draco left the rooftop garden, one hand clenched at his side so hard that his knuckles were white and almost hurting from the strain.

Harry was starting to trust him. The boy who had refused his friendship seven long years ago, who had fought with him constantly, whom he, Draco, had almost hexed with the strongest torture curse in existence, who had almost killed him by slicing him open but in the end had saved his life on another occasion … well, at least no one could say that their relationship had ever been anything but intense. But who cared? Harry was starting to trust him!

It was all he could do not to go back to his fiancé and their colibri and throw him down to properly kiss him senseless with just as much intensity… Harry, not Blaise. Well, Blaise maybe, too.

…

Sweet Morgaine, but now his obsession with the raven haired, green eyed Gryffindor seemed to have reached a totally new level!

But could anyone fault him for that? Harry was beautiful in his own way, especially with those markings and iridescent feathers, and powerful enough to stir his desire and lust to a blazing inferno. But even more than that Harry was an enigma, a paradox, neither this nor that, all at once and nothing at all. Something – pardon, someone, who shouldn't exist in Draco's world.  
He was a Gryffindor with Slytherin tendencies, suppressed but there, and ready to apply himself like a Hufflepuff and intelligent enough to be a Ravenclaw, even though he often seemed to refuse learning when he didn't see a practical utility, which probably related to a gryffindorish/hufflepuffish Ravenclaw. He was the heir of a pureblood family who was a halfblood and a muggleborn by upbringing. He knew nothing about what it really meant to be what he was and yet, he instinctively understood certain concepts that were the foundation of old wizarding families and the world Harry would now live in, willingly or not. Even the age old principle of vengeance and family honour and loyalty. He didn't like them, but in the end he would understand and learn to accept what he couldn't change while changing whatever he could…  
And if Harry really wanted, he could change a hell of a lot: he had a keener mind than one would expect, a firm set of morals and principles, and he possessed both the personal strength – the courage one might say – and the acuteness of mind to fight for what he believed in and emerge victorious. If Harry invested himself, he could do pretty nigh anything, at least with a good strategist at his side.

But he was tolerant and sensible enough to not enforce his will in such matters, to see the reason between traditions if they were explained to him and, Draco thought, intelligent enough to estimate the feasibility of his goals. He could become the bridge over the gaping abyss between the old wizarding families and the mudbloods - … inwardly Draco sighed. He supposed he really should stop using that term, and for Harry's sake he would… Well then, Harry had the potential to become the bridge between _muggleborns_ and purebloods, with his links towards those who betrayed the age-old traditions, those who had none and those venerable families that upheld the old values and would now be forced to re-evaluate their view on the Chosen One, the newest member of the Vykélari community.

They had to, because the wizarding world in England was changing, those of lesser blood and a notable disregard for the traditions that had made their society what it was today, were gaining power and the purebloods would need to adapt or be pushed from the stage to the stands.  
Viewed in this light he should maybe search for another term to call bloodtraitors: maybe they had just anticipated these changes decades before the traditionalists, which then would be a truly commendable example of forethought, instead of the atrocious betrayal of pureblood values that his father had always declared it as. Although Draco doubted that something else than pure love for all things muggle had turned Harry's Weasleys from the 'path of virtue'.

Whatever.

It was of no importance whether Harry decided to devote himself to politics; if he did, Draco was sure that the Gryffindor would do what needed to be done and if he decided to enjoy a more private life… well, the purebloods would survive and Harry would still be an enigma. A riddle that Draco badly wanted to solve, whether it would take his whole life to do so or merely years. He was prepared to become his friend and he would, whatever else might happen. He'd be damned before he allowed the Gryffindor to push him and Blaise out of his life once again. But he wanted to be more than a friend or confidant. He wanted Harry to be with him and Blaise, for the Gryffindor to trust them and only them (even though Draco knew how truly inflated that wish was), to search them out for comfort and help, to stand by them in turn and become part of a triad like there had never been before.  
And by the temptress Morgaine, he wished for Harry to give himself over, to lie beneath him, wanton and moaning, writhing, _crumbling_ , wanted that supple body quivering from his touch alone and those expressive eyes to shine up at him, entranced by the wings he'd spread over them like a canopy of white feathers, and yet with that burning defiance that screamed that there was no one Harry Potter would yield to completely. As it should be.

Even the still sober part of him that screamed _'damn those instincts'_ could not erase that vision from his mind. Neither the one where – and Draco had to lick over his lips to moisten them – he looked down his naked torso to see those ripe lips wrapped around a certain part of his anatomy while he buried his hands in jade- and spring-green feathers and black tresses, cradling and caressing the other teen's head, glowing face, his soft cheeks, drowning in the astonishing green of his eyes before they fluttered close from the intensity of the moment. And all the while he'd watch Blaise pound into the submissive from behind, the dark strong fingers digging into Harry's slender hips, and only with much reluctance the Italian would relinquish his hold to reach down and fondle the younger teen, like he had done with Draco so often before, to help their nightingale reach that supernova, that explosion of overwrought nerve endings, causing the sweet thing to moan and whimper against Draco's flesh…

Draco had to close his eyes at the vision he had conjured up in front of his mind's eye and suppress a moan himself. He didn't bother berating himself for the lack of self-restraint, it was probably the fault of Harry's beautiful feathers and markings anyway that caused him to have such daydreams in the middle of a corridor in his fiancé's home (a Malfoy like himself really should have more self-control and usually, he had); it was maybe just a bit morally reprehensible that they were not about his fiancé per se, but Draco deemed it sufficient that Blaise had featured in them, in any case, he really couldn't find it in himself to worry over that trivia.  
Nonetheless, Draco determinedly forced the images from his mind and told himself to focus: none of this would or could ever happen, if he didn't find a way to set some boundaries to the mating bond. He couldn't be emotionally and mentally naked in front of Harry, he just couldn't.

He needed answers. Right now before he allowed himself to get any closer to Harry. At this point they still could back out, and become friends instead of lovers, because nothing had happened yet; but should they go any further they would pass the point of no return. After that it would become awkward between them at least for their rather inexperienced Gryffindor should they change their mind and decide not to mate. They had, after all, no friendship to fall back to and whatever happened between them, there was no doubt that Harry would take it quite seriously, he certainly didn't strike Draco as someone for whom something like casual love existed. Which was alright, because neither Draco nor Blaise had a different opinion, despite of what the rumour mill in Hogwarts might think. All the more important for Draco to quickly make up his mind. And for that he would need more information, information that Adler would hopefully be able to give him.

But first, he really needed a shower. A cold one. A _very_ cold one.

* * *

  
Not even fifteen minutes later, after a shower that was equally as short as it was cold, Draco strode out of his and Blaise's rooms, leaving his still wet hair to dry freely on its own, the silken strands crying heavy tears onto his blue shirt and painting dark spots on the fine fabric. He could have dried them magically, but that always left the texture so strawy, as if the spell bereft the hair of more than just water.  
It certainly was a breach of the carefully concocted ritual of getting dressed and ready, that usually only varied with different occasions. But right now Draco needed to speak with his ancestor more than he needed to look his best.

So, despite his somewhat rushed appearance, Draco purposefully and determinedly strode through the wide hallways of his fiancé's home that were so much warmer and homely than Malfoy Manor could ever be, until finally he came to stand in front of a narrow, inconspicuous door. It was held in the same artfully painted swirls of oranges, terracotta and gold that covered the rest of the corridor and it would have been almost invisible if one didn't know that it was there in the first place.

It was a room that wasn't intended to be found, just like Adler had wished to have for himself.

At that, Draco shook his head, amused in an exasperated sort of way: even when having been dead for three centuries already, Malfoys always got what they wanted. Embarrassingly, that had only ceased to be the case in his and his father's generation. And that certainly made dealing with his confident, successful ancestor that more difficult.

Taking a deep breath, Draco straightened his posture and entered the room that the house elves had tailored exactly to Adler's wishes. It was a round chamber in the middle of the Manor that had no real windows whatsoever, though wide magical windows covered the whole circle of the room with the one narrow door as the only exception. They were enchanted to show the respective parts of the scenery surrounding the Manor, granting a panoramic view of the sea, the coastline and the mountains far in the north-east.  
The parlour, if it could be called that any longer, had been emptied out completely and was bare now aside from a single, thick, massive wooden pillar that stood in the centre, showing an artfully stylized tree that dominated the otherwise not very large room. It was round except for a metre high, cubic part in the middle, of which each side was occupied by one painting, each showing a different room that probably had been part of some baroque Italian villa: facing the door was a huge, two-storey library, where an elaborate fresco occupied the entirety of the domed ceiling overlooking the curved balconies of the first floor and the richly ornamented worktables on the ground floor. Sunlight flooded the hall through tall windows situated in between the many shelves, bathing it in a surreal golden hue. Next to that painting, Draco knew, he would see a study and a trophy hall. The latter was in his opinion a rather indelicate hotchpotch of magical creatures that bordered on the grotesque. One of Blaise's ancestors had been a professional hunter and his eternally preserved victims, including a Harpy, an Echidna (a man-eating half-snake) and a Teumessian fox littered the room without any conceivable order. The fox at least, Draco was sure, had been a protected species even then; wizards had even spelled the few remaining individuals so that no muggle hunter could catch them.  
Useless to say: that ancestor had not been a Vykélari, their kind didn't care much for such a mortuary cult. Draco rather suspected that this specific painting's presence in Adler's room had something to do with how the deceased Malfoy had treated him when they had first talked through the mirror connection after Harry's transformation. Blaise could be unbelievably protective and vindictive at times…

In any case, the young Malfoy heir gave those three paintings little attention; aside from the fact that his relative was not in them, they held little importance for him. Quickly he rounded the pillar and came to stand in front of the for him well-known portrait of Adler Malfoy, the last of the four paintings and by far the most sombre of them all: dark, small-framed wooden panels faced the walls of the study that had once been Adler Malfoy's. The owner himself currently leaned against a massive desk behind which stood a throne-like arm chair that looked uncomfortable and stiff, made from dark, richly ornamented wood and shiny, well-kept leather padding. All in all, the darkness of the picture's furniture - which, Draco held the sad knowledge, wasn't at all exaggerated - drew even more attention to the one spot of brightness: the pale-haired, pale-skinned inhabitant, who acknowledged his visitor with a small inclination of his head and a soft "Good afternoon, Draco."

"Adler." Draco inclined his head in turn but with a certain stiffness to the movement and never breaking eye-contact. Respect and mistrust in equal shares. Adler was certainly someone to be admired, but not someone to be trusted unconditionally, not to Draco's knowledge in any case. Few were capable of holding his interest for long, even less held his affection. And those who did, were probably most often not even conscious of that little trivia.  
It made dealing with his ancestor quite a precarious endeavour. One never knew if Adler was in the mind of helping or not. And Draco himself was not sure if this time he would get actually useful advice or only slashes from that sharp tongue. Fortunately he wouldn't need the elder Malfoy's advice, only information. But even that was sometimes hard to get as well, if Adler was not inclined to be helpful.

Well, he'd see.

"Two visits in one day." Adler remarked, his gaze resting on the youth standing before him, poised and tall. "To what do I owe that pleasure?" He asked as his opening move, pleasantly as ever.

"A question, Adler. Just a question… Or perhaps more than one." Draco said with a sharp smile while he took out his wand and conjured a chair for himself; one that did look much more comfortable than the one behind Adler's desk.  
Ever so slowly, Draco sat down, smoothing out non-existing wrinkles in his clothes as he did so and watched his counterpart taking his seat behind the desk. "It concerns something we spoke about this morning."

"Feel free to elaborate whenever you are ready." Adler said with an elegant hand-wave and the hint of a smile when Draco had fallen silent for some moments, pondering over how to address the morning's happenings.

Draco merely raised an eyebrow, showing more composure this time as he decided not to react to his ancestor's teasing. He was starting to think that maybe, this was Adler's shrewd kind of humour, or his way of testing him, and that their cooperative work might be more productive if he ignored his biting remarks. At least it could prove to be a worthwhile experiment, he thought with a semi-detached scientific interest, as he fixed the portrait with a nondescript gaze.

"Your husband seems to have reached Harry." He said, tilting his head mildly. "How he did it I do not know, and I don't want to appear distrusting or ungrateful, but if you could find out for me what incentive he used to sway our Nightingale, I'd be much obliged. That, is the first matter I came here for."

The way that Adler leaned back, resting his weight with one elbow on the leather padded armrest so he could comfortably brace his chin, had Draco immediately sit up, and he watched with flagrant suspicion as the long-haired man hid his lips with one hand, the thumb under his chin and the forefinger against the septum of his nose. Especially when the elder Malfoy took a deep breath, Draco _knew_ something was wrong.

"I already know, Draco," he said, his voice tinted with a graveness that Draco didn't like, but after a moment of silence, the propped up hand fell away and Adler smiled at him, a polite, but faked smile. "I spoke with Ives while you were occupied with young Mr Potter… How well your Nightingale did on his beautiful wings; he certainly is a talented flyer."

Draco nodded his affirmation, not letting his ancestor pass from view. "That he is. But let us not digress: we were talking about _both_ of the submissives."

"Of course." Adler conceded. "We shall speak about it after attending to the other concerns that brought you to me."

_'Or in other words,'_ Draco thought, _'the matter is too serious for us to be able to discuss anything else of importance afterwards. How reassuring.'_  
"If you prefer."

But he did scrutinize the near perfect mask of calmness, showing his suspiciousness by doing so, before he returned to the matter that had lead him to seek out his ancestor's portrait to begin with, and which now might turn out to be the less grave topic discussed today. "Well, although Harry was certainly much more accommodating and complaisant after his time with your husband - though I must say you should maybe talk to him about the way he speaks of our family - Harry had…"

"Did you never think the same?" Adler interrupted, making Draco halt and narrow his pale eyes.

Draco didn't ask what his ancestor was talking about. It was clear to him that the other man was referring to Ives' opinion of what had become of the Malfoy name. And of course Draco knew that the little anecdotes that the submissives had shared over breakfast were all too true and that there were neither excuses nor explanations that would make the stories any less atrocious. But one didn't speak of the black pages in the family history – which every family had. Shameful secrets should remain just that: secrets. It had been wrong of Ives to use them to entertain Harry. Was Adler so besotted with his red-haired submissive that he would take his side no matter what? Besides: he hadn't come to Adler for another lesson in humility over their family.  
"I don't think that is of any importance right now." He said, the fingers of his right hand rubbing against another as if they missed the feeling of his hawthorn wand. "Ives should be mindful of what he says to whom. This is his family, also."

"Yes," His opponent granted amiably, "but he cares not for names, he never did, and you should understand that about Harry, too, for I believe he is similar to Ives in that regard: if he comes to like you, or Blaise, he will like _you_ , not your family. He will care for _your _reputation, not your family's. They _believe___ in individuals, Draco. Try to change that and you will destroy an essential part of his being."

"The family's reputation _is_ my reputation!" Draco murmured, his voice deceptively calm.

"It doesn't have to be." Adler countered quietly. "Why do you think no one ever identified me with my father?"

That was true; Draco actually had to think some moments before he could remember the name: Rhisiart Malfoy. He had died early, if his memory served right, leaving his only child and heir to become head of the family at the tender age of 17. Adler had not even been guided through his transformation by his father, as was tradition for dominant Vykélari.

"Because he died so early?" He answered only half-jestingly, tilting his head and watching with interest as one of Adler's hands closed tensely around the armrest, even though his voice was still quiet as he continued.

"Make no mistake, Rhisiart was long enough alive to establish the reputation of a stern, irascible, though cunning man. A great wizard, some said, who in the eyes of others was obsessed with power, dark magic, and sadistic games. He was not nearly as intelligent as he made himself out to be, and not as powerful, but otherwise his reputation was quite true. But I made sure to detach myself from that image as soon as he was killed. And in time, over my accomplishments, he became forgotten."

"A wonderful anecdote, Adler." Draco drawled, secretly storing away how important it seemed for Adler to have surpassed his father. For further reference, one never knew when it might come in handy. "But my situation is rather different from yours: I still have a family and I still care for them enough to have consideration for their wishes and expectations… And their reputation. So while I understand your protectiveness of Ives, I'd appreciate it if he recognized some boundaries. I don't want him to poison Harry's mind further against my family. God knows there is enough animosity already."

"But do you think it is undeserved?"

"Does it matter?" Draco spat, a little bit aggressively in his own protectiveness of his parents and ancestors. Of course it was deserved. But he had not come here for another reminder on his family's faults, this morning had already been enough in that regard, thank you very much. There were more important matters to attend to anyway, such as the invasive nature of the connection they had shared today. Furthermore, despite anything that Adler said or believed: family came first, Draco would have to stand behind them regardless of their crimes and mistakes. Of course he didn't expect Harry to become close to his mother, and much less his father, but maybe both parties could be persuaded to at least ignore each other. In any case he would deal with the problem once it became acute.

"For Harry it will." Adler answered, obviously unimpressed by his young descendant's mindset.  
"Your father tried to kill him more than once. Behind whom will you stand when they will inevitably clash? Will you ask Harry to tolerate Lucius' silent smirks and smug looks or will you tell your father to change his ways and his views or keep them to himself if he can't? If my memory serves me well, you were not too keen on openly standing up to him in the past."  
The painted Malfoy leaned forward, his mercilessly blunt speech and piercing eyes boring into Draco, but now his tone changed, the words seemed to drip slowly from his lips, a deadly trap like resin for an insect. "Can your Gryffindor accept the presence of a murderer, a torturer over a polite conversation and a cup of tea? Do you want him to be able to? Will you force him to?"

Silently, Draco averted his gaze, the answer, the only possible answer, clear in his mind. Of course he wouldn't. Fate had already forced Harry to kill and Draco didn't want to force him to become even colder, even harder than that. It wouldn't be fair on him.  
But now, Draco himself felt as if the whole weight of what his father had done during the last two wars and in between them rested unfairly on his shoulders suddenly instead of on the perpetrators. And wasn't that true? Lucius Malfoy would escape punishment, prison, wriggle out of the sordid affair like a slippery eel; and his conscience was none the worse for it, had been silenced long ago, leaving the current head of the family even unable to understand that what he had done was wrong.  
And Draco had to pick up the shambles, had to balance on the thin line between loyalty and his own believes, his own visions of carrying a name that was not only a charade of power, influence and prestige.

But while Blaise was prepared to support him and play his part, he knew he couldn't expect the same of Harry. Even though the Gryffindor had assured him that Draco's deeds during the war were forgiven, the same did not necessarily hold true for his father…. Who had urged Draco to identify and reveal Harry Potter so he could be given to the Dark Lord and be tortured and killed. Who had hunted him through the Department of Mysteries where Black had died, someone the young submissive had cared for deeply if Severus was to be believed. Who had watched Harry being tortured and had laughed through it all.

Draco closed his eyes.

The list didn’t end. God, even before the war, there had been the incident in their second year; Draco knew his father had been somehow involved in the petrifactions of those students that had ended with Harry landing in the healing wing once more… was there a year in which Harry hadn't ended up in the healing wing some way or the other?

That aside, even if Lucius had not been directly involved, at least he had known exactly what was going on.

No, no one had the right to demand of Harry to just forget and forgive all that had happened between their families, least of all Draco and Lucius, not even to ignore the past. The noble Gryffindor that he was had already helped his mother and him during their trials and given him back his wand; he had spared Draco's life by returning for him and right into the fiendfyre even with all their black history.  
Draco didn't _want_ to ask for more.

"I will think about it," he sighed, more troubled than ever.

"Good." Adler gave him a rare, approving smile. "Now, I believe you were speaking about what happened after our submissives talked."

Nodding slowly, Draco tried to steer his thoughts away from the looming conflict between his father and his submissive, which was harder than it should be. "Well, Harry…"  
... had told them about his problems with Draco's family, but he had not really listened, had not taken the Gryffindor serious enough. Again. A transgression he would have to make sure not to repeat.

"He was afraid." Draco said at last after some more moments of silence. "His first transformation must have been … traumatic at best. So, to alleviate his apprehensions, Blaise proposed to establish a temporary connection. Which I blame you for, by the way. You shouldn't have encouraged him so much this morning." He looked up in time to see Adler hide a smirk and glared at him sharply, but he wasn't really in the mood any more to play games.

"To make it short: we assimilated both physically and mentally: heartbeat, breathing, feeling..." with an indefinite hand-wave he concluded "we shared each sensation."

Only the miniscule narrowing of the deep, blue eyes hinted at the astonishment the elder Malfoy undoubtedly felt at those news. Strangely enough, that lifted Draco's spirits somewhat again and he managed to edge the dark shadow of his father aside for now.  
"I take it, this diverges from the norm?" The question came surprisingly easily over his lips, considering how apprehensive Draco had been. Was this maybe just an irregularity that would diminish or maybe even vanish in time?

Instead of an answer, though, he only got a counter question, insistently asked. "Did the bond remain after you broke physical contact?"

Leaning back, Draco considered his ancestor critically. Adler seemed urgent: the way he stressed his words and had leaned forwards over his desk, boring intense eyes into Draco's head … it was alarming.  
"Only for some lingering moments." He murmured, more interested in his opponents expression and reaction than in the words he himself spoke.

"And were you able to communicate telepathically?"

"We could feel each other's emotions but … no, no articulate thoughts, at least not on my part."

Seemingly relieved, Adler relaxed back against the backrest of his chair - as much as that was possible. "Well, at least you haven't bonded, then."

"Bonded?!" Draco exclaimed, shocked. Had they really almost…

"Well, yes. Obviously this was much more intense than a mere temporary magical connection. It should only have allowed you to feel a vague echo of sensations and let you share only those that you concentrated explicitly on to begin with. Maybe it was because of the life debts between you… or the rather … intense relationship you had even before the war."

Draco shook his head, doubts forming in his mind over that theory. "Blaise felt it, too. And he never interacted much with Harry before now."

"But Blaise has a rather deep connection to you. Well, it could have only been the simple fact that you helped him through the transition and his magic knows and trusts you more." A firm edge had crept into his voice, freezing it over like a still lake in winter. "I wouldn't know since Ives ran away from home prior to his 222nd moon and was lead through his first transformation by his godfather in secrecy and not by me like it was originally planned. In any case I would be careful from now on. You don't want to become mated by accident, do you?"

"No." Draco answered not quickly or firmly enough to be absolutely convincing… and to be honest, it didn't actually matter much to him. After all, in the end what mattered was the result. But Harry would probably be devastated. And Blaise was a romantic, Draco didn't think that he'd want the mating to begin in such a way either.  
That aside … "So this is how a bond is like, then? We would be so closely connected that we'd share the same heartbeat and our emotions?"

The unease he felt at those words must have shown on his face, because Adler once more evaded a direct answer to probe deeper instead.  
"What is it you are asking, Draco?"

Averting his gaze once more, Draco wondered if he really wanted to answer that question completely truthfully. Here was someone who had done everything this side of the legal to become mated to Ives Prewett; obviously he would not be able to get an unbiased opinion.  
But so far, Adler had proven to be surprisingly helpful and had not really ridiculed him once. He had been relatively forthcoming with information, at least when asked directly, and though Draco secretly thought that the elder Malfoy had incited them to rush into establishing the temporary bond, it had been their own (or rather Blaise's) decision in the end. And he needed those information…

"I found myself manipulated by their emotions and I must admit, that though the experience itself was not unpleasant, the thought of being influenced in such a way is quite disconcerting to me. So I wish to know if it is possible to … disable … those aspects of the bond."

For some moments only the sound of Adler's fingertips tapping softly onto the wooden end of his armrest could be heard, and Draco looked up again, poised and with a mostly neutral expression firmly fixed on his handsome face.  
Adler looked back at him with an expression that one might read a newspaper with, one of concentration and mild interest, while he sucked up all the information he could get.

It might have been disconcerting, being looked at like this, had Draco not been perfectly sure that there was not much to be read from his countenance and bearings. He had been taught by a spy, a Black and a Malfoy, after all. A formidable threesome.

"Yes, it is possible." Adler said at last, the corner of his lips twitching into an unwilling smile. "It rather is like the physical transformation: the first time everything will be established once and then it can be retracted and brought forth again at will."

"That is good to hear." Draco said calmly, inwardly relieved and pleased beyond measure, almost as if someone had cast a cheering charm on him. Of course, he knew that this was only one of many, yet unsolved problems he was facing and also that he could not always keep the connection closed - he even suspected that for the bond to function properly they would have to actively keep it open from time to time; but there was the _possibility_ to do it and preserve their privacy whenever they needed it and that was enough. At least it would grant him some much needed time to get used to the overwhelming closeness; at least, it was one problem deferred if not solved.

Another one to tackle.

"So," Draco said, sitting up straight and poised, a gleaming in his eyes replacing the earlier pensiveness "will you tell me now what your Ives did to garner Harry's compliance?"

Adler sighed, looking out of the side of his portrait for but a moment before turning back to his young descendant with a grave look. "I'm afraid you will not like it. I certainly didn't. But it is nothing that can't be turned to your advantage. _If_ you are judicious and remain level-headed." The portrait said with a sharp, warning glance.

A little bit displeased at the way Adler kept advising him over things that had been taught to him even before he had entered Hogwarts (granted, he had not always acted on his teachings), Draco pursed his lips, his cool eyes full of unspoken stinging hexes. "Please, Adler, spare me the lectures."

With a soft snort of amusement, the elder man inclined his head in a mock-bow to his descendant "As my young lord wishes."

Draco took a deep breath to rein in his flaring indignation. Despite needing the portrait's assistance, despite respecting the man it showed a lot and despite wishing to become just as, if not more, influential as he had been in his days, this was just a painting, the portrait of a dead man who no longer held the role of head of the Malfoy family. It was a nuisance, really, that all those portraits had been painted in the prime of the person's life, they often were unable to adapt to changed circumstances and power relations.  
Maybe it was time to seize the opportunity of being alone with his ancestor and address the matter that for him was becoming a problem.

"Indeed, Adler." He drawled, his voice and expression steely. "That is exactly what I am in regard to you, and I tire of your attitude quite frankly. I value your council and it would pain me to lose it, but as the only _living_ heir of our family, the one who will be _head_ of the family, I demand your respect in turn or I will have all your portraits delivered to a windowless safe-house with no possibility of visiting other places or any other paintings that do not hold your person." And that would include any portrait of Ives' also, leaving the two lovers separated while the ban lasted and Adler unable to commune with anyone but copies of himself. It was a harsh threat, but Draco hoped it might at least shift the so far unequal balance of power in their relationship towards himself and remind Adler of his allegiance. If the move cost him Adler's advice and Ives' support, then so be it; in contrast to his parents, Draco was not willing to endlessly pamper the portraits' ego just to keep them happy and complacent.

Long moments passed with neither Malfoy breaking their fierce eye contact, as the elder tried to assess the heir's sincerity in his threat and the younger tried to convey it with all his considerable stubbornness. Neither one spoke, and their breathing was as flat and slow and silent as possible while they fought to enforce their will.  
Finally, Adler spoke, his posture and expression unwavering. "You would really do it, wouldn't you."

"You may test me whenever you please." Draco said, his words deceptively soft. "But I'd rather you would not force me to follow through on my words. As I said: I do value your advice."

"Then you have it." Adler said, the tenseness around his eyes easing away and Draco had the odd feeling that there was some form of approval. In any case, the portrait settled back in his arm chair and folded his slender hands, as if he had been unmoved by the topic of their conversation and his descendant blackmailing him; like a businessman sifting through the different topics of a conference.

Draco meanwhile waited, his fingers drumming away impatiently on his crossed legs. It seemed that even if he would get Adler's cooperation more freely now, they still weren't past games. He sighed martyred. "So will you grant me said advice?"

"But of course." The other answered, his thoughtful eyes dancing to the side. "I believe we were talking about 'incentives', were we not? Well, it seems that Ives bought young Harry's cooperation by promising to tell him how to force you and Blaise into giving him a portkey back to London on the 31st of August."

Draco sat stock-still, disbelieve and the rotten feeling of betrayal pulsing through his mind.   
Ives, that Weasel-headed cur!

In little more than … Merlin! Only one and a half months, Harry would be gone, gone forever and everything they would have accomplished until then would be for nought. Worse: Harry's sudden willingness to compromise, the way he had opened himself to them, his acceptance … all of that was nothing but a clever lie so that he could in the end escape them.

It was no wonder, that Harry had seemed so approachable today, that he had yielded so easily. He was playing his part so that eventually he could flee from Blaise and Draco. By Morgaine, how could a Gryffindor sustain a charade that encompassing, acting the whole day long… if he wasn't so angry with Ives, he might have been able to admire that feat favourably with the appropriate attentiveness. Right now, though, he was ... not amused, to put it lightly.

Had Harry even meant it? That he had forgiven Draco for everything that had happened in Hogwarts and during the war? Or had that been faked, too… _fuck_!

Almost, Draco cursed out loud, anger and frustration and bitter disappointment warring in him. Had it been too much to hope for? That Harry Potter might really give his nemesis of seven years another chance? That he might come to forgive him, even like him? Trust him?  
But a tiny part of him flared, not in defence of himself, but of Harry. The Gryffindor wouldn't be so cruel, surely. Harry might not really care for them, might be angry at them or even hate them, he might feign his cooperation and acceptance of the situation, but he was not so cruel as to lie about something like this and fake understanding and forgiveness so convincingly when there was absolutely no need to.

And the way he had spoken to them, about not wanting to be an Auror, about his feelings on the ministry… he had been so open and … and he had even implied that he started trusting Draco. Surely that would have been going too far for a mere pretence, such an act was colder and crueller than their colibri, their sweet Harry, was. He wouldn't do something like that.

No, maybe he was really trying to give them a chance, for the sake of his freedom and the pleading of another submissive, a kindred spirit, so to speak. Ironically enough, due to Ives and his attempt to buy them said chance, they might have lost it now all the same. A frightening thought.

"Shit!"

And really, there was no word more fitting to describe the situation. Draco knew how much Harry valued his freedom, knew that he had felt caged. But it was better to be caged and safe than free and hunted down, or so Draco thought and therefore he and Blaise had planned to stay at Lanai Manor if Harry needed the time, get them the best tutors that money could buy instead of returning to Hogwarts, where another three or four newly fledged dominant Vykélari would be in their year, it really depended on how many had received their inheritance.  
At least none of them were Gryffindors and could lie in wait for Harry in his dorm or common room where neither Blaise nor Draco could protect him.

Draco snarled lowly, angered and frustrated. _That shouldn't have mattered_ , Harry should not have met other Vykélari until he was mated to the two dominants that had guided him through his transition or until he was at least secure in his newfound powers and knowledgeable enough to be able to protect himself. After Ives' interference it would come differently now: Adler's husband had made it so that he would become Harry's infallible friend and confidant while Blaise and he would never be able to reach that level of trustworthiness in the Gryffindor's eyes. Because they had not been the ones to give him back his treasured freedom. And as he was getting to know the more intricate patterns of the personality of the submissive who had once been his enemy, Draco was also starting to understand, that he could not possibly give him a more precious gift than the one Ives had given him.

"Ives wanted him to give you a chance." Adler said quietly, interrupting his gloomy pondering. "An honest chance."

Draco snorted. "I know. But instead he established himself as the wise saint and us as the well-meaning but misguided kidnappers. Whatever we do now, it will be too late, Harry will think - and rightly so - that we were forced into action by Ives… and all the while Harry is acting a part, playing the eager and willing student, the grateful and understanding protégé… he even more or less allowed us to court him for the sake of appearances solely! He would have made a good Slytherin."  
And if his voice was somewhat bitter as he said these words, who could fault him for that?

"No, Draco. If what Ives tells me is true, then what you saw today was his real self, the one he couldn't show you before because of all the pressure you put on him by taking away his freedom and not giving him any hope of returning it to him."

"Really?" Draco snorted. "Because he was still so very uncomfortable with his transformation; what if he only did it for the sake of the promise to Ives? He should accept his inheritance when he is ready to, and not an hour earlier, Adler. And I don't want his trust or forgiveness if he forced himself to feel it just so he kept that damned covenant."

Adler shook his head slowly. "I think you should give him more credit than that. He possesses the vaunted Gryffindor bravery, so why shouldn't he face his fears? And maybe he is more compassionate than you think him to be. Honestly, I believe that Ives merely helped him overcome his anger and made him address his problems instead of sulking over them."

"A little bit more respect, please, Adler. The 'sulking boy' defeated one of the most powerful wizards of our time in a duel, even before his inheritance. I doubt your Ives would have been able to do that" Draco said sharply before he became aware of the amused smile playing around his ancestor's lips, and he averted his gaze, irritated that he had allowed himself to be played in such a way.

"In any case it will be difficult now to earn his trust, when the only atonement that really would have counted has already been offered by Ives." Draco said as he stood and turned to leave. There was nothing more to say and he found himself eager to return to Blaise and Harry, to reassure himself of Harry's sincerity, his forgiveness, and that it would still be possible to win him over. Of course he knew that this endeavour would require a considerable amount of subtleness, after all, their submissive's decision to collaborate with Ives was understandable, nothing that Draco or Blaise could fault him for and earning his trust and favour now was a delicate, intricate affair that could not be tackled upfront. That would just catch Harry's suspicion, possibly make him think that they were only forced into action by Ives, only playing an elaborate charade to trick him into mating.

"Draco!" Adler called out, passing through the painting with the study into the library to follow his descendant's retreating figure. "What will you do?"

Already at the door, Draco halted, his slender fingers dancing over the doorknob.   
"I'll fill you in later." He said with more confidence than he actually felt.  



	17. Contrition, Confession, Confusion

Out of the corner of his eyes, Blaise could still see Harry staring after Draco, even while the two of them started to walk towards the stairs that would lead them off the rooftop garden, and he saw him knead the knuckle of his left forefinger in bewilderment. Blaise was pretty sure that this feeling was once again caused by the continuous, sudden changes in Draco's behaviour. The blond was often keen to experiment and sometimes openly kept switching between behaviour patterns, testing what would benefit him the most. For the most part, Blaise himself liked that rather volatile streak, it certainly made interactions with his gyre falcon that much more interesting, but he could understand why it would leave others reeling.  
As it obviously did Harry. From the look of it, the brunet was still trying to process all that had been said and slowly, Blaise's own conscience was starting to make itself felt. He knew of Harry's past with the press, of course, who didn't? And he also knew that despite being the damned Saviour of the Wizarding World (multiple times at that), the Gryffindor Golden Boy was rather self-conscious. God, he still remembered his discomfort and clumsiness in those horrible meetings of the Slug Club… the few times Harry had been there at all.

"Harry?" He tried to get the other's attention and from the way startled forest-green eyes jumped to his own, he had been deeply in thought, indeed. "Don't let Draco's enthusiasm pressure you into anything. Or my opinion for that matter. I know that you do not like publicity much, everyone knows that. It's just: I think one should only complain about things that can and should be changed and only when willing to invest oneself to achieve those changes."

Next to him, the Gryffindor rolled his eyes, his lips curled into a self-ironic smirk. "You forget that I fought a Dark Lord. I do know the difference between wallowing in self-pity and calling attention to things that need changing and really undertaking those changes."  
Then suddenly the grin diminished as Harry turned serious again. "And you really needn't worry about me: My whole childhood and a good portion of my youth was sacrificed for 'the greater good'. This is my life now and I won't let myself be pressured into doing something I really don't want."

Unsmilingly, Blaise nodded in acknowledgement of the other's statement, that seemed so tenuous in the light of Harry's status as a submissive. He just hoped they could keep this promise that Harry had made to himself. Sometimes he still wasn't sure if the younger teenager really grasped what was happening to him. Well, that was a topic for another time.  
"Will you think about it, though?" he asked just as he waved Harry to precede him down the circular stairs.

The brunet did, but not before shrugging his indecisiveness – an action he seemed to regret immediately as his unwilling muscles tensed painfully from the small movement, and he winced slightly either at the image of becoming a ministry employee or at the pain (the latter Blaise somehow doubted, Harry sadly was too experienced with pain for something like aching muscles to affect him much).  
"Maybe." Harry said, not quite successfully hiding his grimace. "I think you are right about the thing with changing something and complaining about it and knowing the difference and it is time someone started to do something about all those problems. But me? I really can't see myself working as a ministry official."

Secretly, Blaise had to agree, he didn't think that Harry would be able to find his way through the intrigues and games played within the ministry with enough grace to be truly successful and climb the career ladder far enough to be able to change things from the inside. But still … "You don't have to become a highly ranked ministry employee or the minster himself, to influence politics. There are other ways…"  
And that was, at least for Harry, a fact: as a war hero he could influence quite a lot from outside of the ministry, simply by using the weight of his name and his public influence to put pressure onto the right places and persons.

But Harry interrupted him before he could elaborate further, his expression still twisted into that curious grimace. "In any case, it doesn't matter right now, does it? We're far away from England."

"We won't always be." Blaise said, and of course he had wanted to prod a little further but when, following that statement, Harry smiled at him with one of those small, quiet smiles that tugged at his lips seemingly against his will, he just couldn't. But damn, Blaise was growing rather fond of those accursed smiles and if getting the chance to collect more of them meant stopping to harass Harry about possibly choosing a political career, well, then he'd have to do just that. Honestly, it was just like Draco's amused eyes, laughing at him for trying to romance someone as level-headed as the Slytherin Ice Prince, even though he knew Draco loved the attention and he appreciated the thought of whatever it was Blaise did for him and so he did it nonetheless. Just for the laughter in those eyes.

"Probably not." Harry admitted, then he ducked his head and turned and together they walked down the stairs in comfortable silence and along the corridors to Harry's rooms, both pursuing their own thoughts.  
Blaise's slowly turned to his fiancé. He was quite aware of Draco's difficulty with the emotional aspects of the temporary bond they had shared and he was pretty sure that his steely eyed lover was at that moment – or would be very soon – searching out Adler and the outcome of that conversation might determine whether Draco wanted to stop their pursuit of the young submissive before it had even really begun … but Blaise himself wasn't so sure anymore if he could really give up Harry. When they had taken him to Lanai Manor he had expected the Gryffindor to make their life hell, to obstinately refuse to learn from them and instead oppose them at every upcoming opportunity, fight them tooth and nail and try to flee at least once a day. But he hadn't. Okay, it was true, he had tried to flee once, but honestly, he and Draco had no one but themselves to blame for that. Blaise knew he should have explained instead of ordering the young submissive around, Harry was rational enough that he would have understood, Blaise had realised that now; and together with what Snape had told them… Draco and he really had it coming, Harry's attempted escape.

But the Golden Gryffindor had forgiven them, had forgiven Draco, and now he accepted their teaching, and was even trying himself to make his stay pleasant for all of them. And pleasant it was, very much so. After today, Blaise rather thought he would enjoy teaching the boy, he was a quick learner and his amazement at every discovery he made was infectious.  
Aside from that Harry was easy to be around and – Blaise had never thought he might admit as much willingly … ever – quick-witted and bright enough to hold his own in a discussion against two well-bred purebloods like Draco and himself. Indeed, what he lacked in eloquence, he more than made up for with pure logic and zeal, so that despite his own opinions, Blaise found Harry's political views refreshing. The Saviour probably didn't know it, wouldn't even understand it if Blaise mentioned it, but there was no denying it nonetheless: he was inspiring. The war had left him with the flair of a leader and how he had spoken earlier … just like a damned brilliant political speaker. If he could learn to talk like this in front of hundreds of people, he could sway the emotions of the masses and make his tool of them. Not that he would ever tell Harry so. The Gryffindor would probably take it the wrong way and see it as a dark gift like his Parseltongue. Apropos … if Harry might be persuaded to speak for them?

Blaise didn't get to ask that question out loud as a low murmur from his companion tore him from his musings.

"What did you say?" He asked, watching with a raised eye-brow as Harry bit his lips and, in an almost regretful tone of voice, said "I said that he didn't like it."

Bewildered at the seemingly disjointed statement, Blaise raised a questioning eyebrow at the younger submissive. "Pardon?"

"Draco." Harry clarified. "He didn't like the temporary connection. He was angry when you proposed it."

With a sigh, Blaise brought a hand up to massage his neck. He had hoped that the other teen would not mention that little observation quite yet and he struggled for an answer that would explain Draco's reaction without giving things away that Blaise was sure his fiancé would rather keep hidden for the moment.  
"He is … Draco is a very private person, Harry." He said finally, knowing it wouldn't be enough to divert or placate the brunet when he gave him a rather sceptical look.

"Adler told us just this very morning how to establish temporary connections and Draco … he thought it too early for you and for himself and maybe it was. But I proposed it nonetheless. That's why he was angry. And it … it was just … " wonderful? Addictive? Frighteningly intense? All of that and still no description would suffice. Words often weren't accurate enough in Blaise's opinion. And really, there was no perfectly fitting adjective or paraphrase for the warmth and dizzying contentment that the three of them had experienced together. And the familiarity it had build. How should he feel about knowing Harry's emotions so intimately, more intimately probably than his two best friends and that Weasley girl? Dazzled? Not quite, but even so, he had been swept along in the tide of Harry's very private emotions and had felt the same happen to Draco. And that loss of control that had only been recognized as such in retrospect, was disconcerting. So it had been uncomfortably comfortable, wonderfully frightening, addictively familiar and dazzlingly intense.

"… it was unexpected, Harry," Well, that was also true, at least, "for Draco more so than for me, but neither of us knew really what it would be like and … Harry, we are Snakes, not Badgers and it was a rather … intense experience to be so in the open, something that will take some getting used to."

He looked over to Harry, but the brunet kept staring ahead stubbornly and there was a curious expression on his face that Blaise didn't like much, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that bothered him. He was unaware of the spark of irritation growing inside Harry: Finally, finally he had found something worthwhile in this whole mating-business, and it was the one thing that the two dominants were uncomfortable with. How fucked up was that?

"I … you know, it's alright, really …" Harry started hesitantly, if a little bit strained, "just, if maybe I could stay here until the school term starts, that'd be great…"

That stopped Blaise dead in his tracks and he actually needed a moment to recover his bearings. Was that Gryffindor really saying what he thought he was? In his surprise the question fell from his lips before he managed to at least formulate it in a manner that might have, even faintly, resembled politeness. "Just what the hell are you talking about?"

Defiantly Harry cocked his head and shrugged to fake nonchalance, an act that was belied by the small, barely perceptible movement of his right hand at his side, where it had reflexively wanted to reach for his wand before remembering that it wasn't there. Now instead he folded his arms and glared up at him. "Well, obviously Draco doesn't care much for the bond, and you'll of course follow him in his decision, so if you changed your mind, I'm fine with that…"

It was all Blaise could do to not let his jaw drop at that.  
 _Fine_ with them losing interest in him. Harry was _fine_ with _leaving_ them.

Blaise didn't listen further and while he himself was maybe too stunned to react, his magic was not: When he would later contemplate his reaction, Blaise wouldn't be able to define what exactly he was feeling at that very moment. He only knew that his stomach contracted uncomfortably and that his heart beat faster for some reason or the other. It wasn't anger and it wasn't nervousness or fear, or any other emotion in its pure form; no, it was a complex mixture that he couldn't decipher. But it was intense enough that his magic acted of its own accord and suddenly Blaise felt his wings strain against his skin and then, before he had the chance to do anything about it, they pressed against the thin fabric of his shirt, sending spikes of white-hot pain through his backside. It was all he could do to bring his magic into action and quickly cut the necessary slits into the fabric to relieve the throbbing, because he knew he wouldn't be able to force back his wings.  
A moment later he had cocooned Harry and himself in a mass of bronze- and copper-coloured feathers, drawing them close and closer around their bodies as a barrier against light, noises and smells. A downy curtain, that veiled them in half-darkness, illuminated only by Blaise's magic, which flickered over the silky texture like light reflections from the moving surface of red-golden water.

The effect was stunning, and Harry seemed to think so, too. He had flinched back at first, his head turning away from Blaise and his shoulders scrunching up. But as the young submissive caught sight of the wings around him, his expression and stance eased up and he leaned forward, entranced by the net of light wavering over the copper feathers. He reached out, his fingers threading through the insubstantial magic and stirring its patterns, making it curl and dance.

_'It welcomes you,'_ Blaise thought and wondered if Harry knew. He couldn't be sure: the brunet shivered for a moment and gasped slightly, but he didn't pull back again. At that moment, Blaise wasn't aware that Harry couldn't have, even if he had wanted to. The submissive's very own magic had entrapped him in a dreamlike state, purring and whispering sweetly to him to keep silent, to watch the display of power that was given just for him. It was pleasing to watch, wasn't it? Beautiful even, amazing. And god, it imbued him with an almost other-worldly feeling of elation, as if he stood above everything and everyone else in the world, if only he could stay with the Vykélari in front of him. He was desirous, strong and handsome, wasn't he, and together their magic would be unsurpassed throughout the wizarding world. That was something worth striving for, wasn't it? _Wasn't it_? He should allow his magic to reach out for him with a hand of pure energy and entice the dark skinned bronze angel to let Harry forge the link between them that no one would ever be able to break.

In that way, so much like an imperius, Harry's magic cradled his thoughts, guided them and his body and though Harry was starting to realise that something was off, that he should fight the sluggishness that had overtaken his consciousness, he was not yet able to bring himself to really shake off the effects; because this was not another wizard with unfamiliar magic trying to control him with an imperius, no, this treachery originated in his own core. Everything in him demurred at the thought of fighting his own magic, something that had always been a trusted ally, that had never betrayed him, but saved him countless times; from bullies in his childhood, up to mortal enemies in recent years. How could a wizard be expected to fight his own magic?

And all the while, Blaise was unaware of Harry's inner struggle. He only saw the submissive's palpably dazed and stunned amazement, an amazement that he shared, even if not as strongly.  
This had never happened before. Never. Blaise hadn't even known that his magic could take on a lasting visible shape like this at all. Of course he had caused it to leave his body before, as an invisible layer hovering just above his skin or as tendrils or barely visible sparks that he sent into objects or into the skin of … well, of Draco or Harry, to be honest. He hadn't done that with anyone else yet aside from the magical exchange during his own very first transformation, and he didn't want to. It was too intimate a feeling, those exchanges of magic, to share them with just anyone.

That aside, usually when he had trained, the magical embodiments were rather fickle, they couldn't persist, and instead kept dissolving if they weren't directed fast enough to where they were meant to go. These light reflections were very much stable and, dare he say it – beautiful.  
But even more beautiful he found the way it illuminated the golden skin of the younger submissive, dancing in the green eyes, so much like emeralds but so much more valuable, so that they looked like gems lying in a riverbed. Forest-green feathers had appeared in his hair, and they looked softer than ever before – a little bit like the feathers of an ostrich, only green and more iridescent – as they fluffed up in obvious contentment, ruffling the soft, thick strands of raven hair. Would Harry allow him to rake his hands through the down like feathers?

He didn't want to ask though, didn't want to break the silence and destroy the vision of Harry standing there like a wanderer watching the Northern Lights, transfixed and bewitched by the sight of such a spectacle.

A moment later though, Blaise felt a memory wash away his heady, magic-drunken elation like a tide of ice water. Bewitched. It was something he had heard before from a portray or maybe he had read about it in some tome of his own father, whom he had never known. Something the Malfoy portraits had even hinted at the first time they had spoken with them about Harry and about possible methods to make him stay at the manor: because submissives were magically stronger, because for a dominant to approach one who was well-rested with the intention of mating him was indeed very dangerous in and on itself, nature had gone out of its way to give a trump card to the magically weaker. While all Vykélari were naturally fascinated by magic - there was no denying that - an inexperienced submissive could literally be caught in a trance like state merely by being exposed to well-controlled, powerful magic. Of course he could overcome that addiction if he encountered it often enough in his life, just like a drug that one developed a resistance against. But Harry had never gotten in touch with anything remotely related to Vykélari before and so he was open and vulnerable to the not so subtle influence, more so than any other submissive who was raised amongst other Vykélari. And Blaise's magic had reacted by itself, enfolding Harry so that he would not leave, so that Blaise could reach out, close the submissive's core off, block his magic and thus make him helpless until they mated. And all that before Harry had the chance to react, too entranced with the display of magic.

Almost, Blaise would have stepped back and retracted his wings, appalled at the vision his own magic painted in front of his mind's eye, but he didn't want Harry to leave and he was sure he would if he retracted his wings. Harry would wake and would be angry and once again he would run before Blaise could explain.  
But neither did he want the brunet mindless, a slave to his magic, so instead he hastily pulled it back into his body with a conscious effort, letting it seep away into his wings like water into sand, but the feathery appendages he left where they were folded around Harry's body.

Immediately Harry swayed ever so slightly forwards, as if following the retreating magic, but then he pulled back, his expression becoming more alert but still a little bit dazed as if he had just woken from a daydream and he blinked for some moments with a forlorn expression, still staring at Blaise's wings as if he wanted to ask where the hell his private light show had gone to.

But the realisation of what had happened came too soon, and accusing green daggers bore into Blaise's eyes. The fluffy downs between Harry's black strands sharpened and hardened into shimmering, thin and long feathers, and no longer did they point in all possible directions, but neatly backwards instead, forming a crest that raised itself high above his head, similar to that of some Hawk Eagles.  
"What _the hell_ happened?" Harry pressed out and for a moment it seemed as if he wanted to step back from the Italian, but he didn't and only a barely noticeable shiver betrayed his disquiet at being so close and obviously entrapped by the wings of someone who had just controlled him like that.

"Sorry." Blaise sighed and reached out for the other teen's hands, only to have his arm viciously slapped away.

"Don't!" Harry growled and now he did step back until his back was pressed tightly against the copper-coloured wings behind him and he glared at the Italian somewhat fiercely as if he could force him to let him go with his eyes alone.  
He was the image of distrust and righteous anger, Blaise thought with a sinking feeling in his stomach; his stance had widened, and his hands were tightly balled into fists; they were still at his sides, but ready to come up and embed themselves into Blaise's nose or stomach if he attempted to approach or touch Harry again.

Blaise sighed once more and held up his hands in a placating gesture that didn't seem to have any effect at all. "I reacted on instinct, Harry. I'm sorry."

"What the hell did you do to me?" It was barely above a whisper, half furious and half afraid and somehow, Blaise felt it was even worse than the growling accusation from before. He lowered his head deeply and turned it to the side so that Harry would be able to see and reach his neck.  
It was a deeply submissive gesture, one that Harry should be able to instinctively recognize and of course as such nothing that normally would be tolerated in a pureblood society. Instincts were meant to be controlled, not flaunted. As a matter of fact it was only because Vykélari traits were usually so subtle and inconspicuous, their instincts normally easy to contain and not noticeable at all, and because all transformations were purely magical and not physical and lasting like those of Veela, Vampires, Werewolves and other halfbloods, that made Vykélari so accepted in the wizarding world. That and the level of magical power and the fact that most pureblood families had at least a few Vykélari in their lineage.

But even if it caused a huge scandal if it was seen – which it wouldn't – the gesture might calm Harry enough to listen to him, at least Blaise hoped it would.  
"When you spoke about leaving, my magic… I couldn't keep my wings away. I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't know you would react that way."

His efforts were in vain, though, as Harry was in no way ready to see the sincerity behind it, anger and more importantly fear clouding his judgement. Even the first time when the Moody imposter had imperiused him, Harry had been able to somewhat fight against the mind-control. But this... this would leave him helpless and meek and pliable, fresh modelling clay for the dominant to form himself the perfect, obedient submissive; he might be unable to defend himself or refuse any of his controller's orders and instead cheer him on in utter bliss all the way into absolute mind slavery.  
He couldn't bear the thought of being put under a spell that could destroy him like that and he snarled and shoved against Blaise's left wing but it wouldn't budge. "You hexed me! Let me go!"

Immediately, Blaise drew his wings closer around the both of them, his head whipping around. "I did _not_ hex you! It was your own magic, Harry! I swear…"

But the Gryffindor was having none of it, he just wanted to get a safe distance away from the mind control he had just experienced. And god, all that after he had honestly tried giving them a chance at Ives' request as best as he could; and now they threw his trust into the dirt and stomped right over it. He felt betrayed. God, but he should have known that something like this would happen. Conniving, lying, scheming Slytherin bastards.

He threw a punch at Blaise's left wing but he didn't want to really hurt the other young man and therefore he didn't put as much force behind it as he could have. Still it was enough to make the Italian yelp and quickly he drew his wings closer, effectively immobilizing Harry so that he found his arms pressed tightly against his sides and a wall of feathers uncomfortably close to his face.  
"Damn it, let me go already, Blaise! Leave me the hell alone!" He growled and snarled and spat, trying to turn towards his captor, but he couldn't: the devil had wormed his arms around Harry's chest and held onto him like a screw clamp.

"Not until you let me explain!" Blaise growled back. It hadn't been his fault; both Harry and he had reacted on instinct. Mordred, he himself was almost as ignorant as Harry was when it came to mating; it wasn't as if he had thought he or any other dominant Vykélari would ever need that knowledge again, after all. No, they were all stumbling through this whole mess like bumbling fools and they needed to be a little bit more accommodating towards each other if they wanted to survive the following weeks with their sanity intact. And he needed to make Harry understand. Now.

"Let me explain!" He repeated urgently, but Harry only growled at him.  
"So you have another chance at controlling me? No, thanks, asshole!" And the Gryffindor continued to struggle and squirm within Blaise's tight embrace.

"I don't want to control you."

"Sure!" Harry mocked and finally managed to stomp on one of his captor's feet with all his not inconsiderable strength. Blaise jumped away, gasping from the sudden pain in his bruised limb and Harry used his chance to slip through the small gap that had opened between the wings with a cry of triumph. He sped away towards his rooms, intent on barricading himself in there and forcing Ives to bloody well tell him how to get away. But he didn't get far. After only a few steps Blaise was on him, whirling him around and all but slamming him against the wall, pinning him down on the hard surface.

"I do _not_ want to control you!" He snarled, his breath coming in hard pants, ruffling the silken strands falling into Harry's flushed face. The brunet didn't look at him, kept struggling weakly as if only out of stubbornness and anger.

Oddly, his voice didn't match the enraged expression on his handsome face and the feathers in his hair had flattened against his skull, for the first time taming the chaotic black strands into an almost orderly something that one could call a decent hairstyle.

It didn't suit Harry at all.

"As if I'd believe you." He pressed out and slumped down into Blaise's grip in resignation, sounding so … depressed and frustrated, and Blaise couldn't help but wonder if the Gryffindor was truly coping as well as he had seemed to. How unbearable it must be to be the celebrated Saviour of the wizarding world, someone to whom people were looking to for guidance; to finally have reached a mediocre level of peace and safety after years of being chased by lunatics and self-proclaimed dark lords, just to have that all taken away in one fear-ridden, pain-filled night and then be told that he would be chased again, expected to bow and mate to whomever got to him first. And now he was not even able to defend himself, if the dominants had the ability to control him like this.

"I don't want to" Blaise murmured with a gentler voice, leaning forward to place a kiss on Harry's forehead, causing the feather-crowned head to whip up so quickly that it missed his nose by millimetres only.

"Stop that!" Harry growled and Blaise was oddly glad that there was some real offence in that exclamation. Better than that frustrated, hopeless resignation, and it made complying to Harry's wish so much easier, he thought as he gave an acknowledging nod.

At the same time he reached out with his magic, let it tingle from his skin to Harry's where their arms touched. Wary green eyes closed in on Blaise, half expecting more magic to show and try to control him again.  
"Feel if I'm lying, Harry." He said and waited. He had enough of Harry doubting them and this was the only way he could think of, to make the gryphon believe and trust them.

* * *

  
Harry was still unsettled, and he felt disturbingly trapped in the tight hold the other Vykélari had on him. And he was wary … and the way his skin still tingled from the magic that had been all around him didn't make it any better. Now that it was gone, the impact it had had on him left him shaken to the core. It had played and rippled over the Italian's skin like the reflections of water, as if it wanted him to believe that its source, Blaise's inner core, was just as deep and wide and resourceful as an ocean. And he hadn't been able to think. Indeed when Blaise had taken away the distracting swirls of gold and copper and red, it was like awaking from a wonderful dream that he was desperately trying to hold on to. He would have gone with whatever had happened around him, he knew, just like a dreamer never questioning his dreamscape. And that was more than just troubling, it was frightening.

Warily he looked down to the pale sparks vanishing into his skin, unable to keep himself from wondering whether they were somehow moulding his emotions again. He didn't think so, but still... Harry just didn't know if he wanted to come into close contact with that magic again.

And yet, if it was true and Blaise hadn't done it deliberately, Harry had no right to resent him for it; just as people had had no right to hate or mistrust Harry for speaking Parsel, when he hadn't even known that he was doing it most of the time. He had wished again and again that people would give him the chance to explain instead of just assuming his guilt and now, now he was doing the same thing. The worst was that Harry knew he had had no proof of Blaise's guilt before accusing him. Now Blaise was offering him to establish a bond and that even though Harry knew he had found it somewhat disconcerting, less so than Draco, true, but still the Italian had been uncomfortable. And despite his doubts about Blaise's claim to not have known what had been happening, Harry didn't question that discomfort. During their connection, he had felt Draco's and Blaise's emotions so clearly, so keenly and those should be well-nigh impossible to fake.

Nonetheless establishing the connection once again would mean another mingling of magic, another close contact with those tempting streams of pure energy that had the power to control him like no wizard had managed to do before. All of Harry's usually less than reliable instincts of self-preservation were for once vetoing in determined unity. Only his thrice damned sense of justice insisted on throwing caution to the wind. Again.

"You want me to establish … _a connection_ … like before?" Harry asked hesitantly, just to make sure he hadn't misunderstood and he half expected the Italian to recoil at the idea, or maybe he hoped he would, but Blaise didn't. That black mamba only smiled at him, nodded again and finally relinquished his hold on Harry's arms to grasp his hands instead.

Involuntarily Harry's gaze flickered to their linked hands; Blaise's skin felt warm and smooth against his own, not calloused by brooms and months in the wild like his own were and the magic flowing into Harry's body where they touched tingled a little bit but also soothed his frazzled nerves and tense muscles. He remembered those touches from St. Mungo's, how nice they had felt, how he had calmed and instinctively known that he was safe. Had that been a natural reaction, just the way you would calm if a friend squeezed your shoulder comfortingly, or had it been his own magic or Blaise's tampering with his mind? He didn't know, but if it was the latter ... Harry couldn't accept it. Even if it didn't cause him to lose himself in feelings that were not his own, it would be a weakness he couldn't afford, might cause him to overlook important details in a potentially precarious situation or react too late to a threat.

Forcefully Harry pushed that line of thinking to the background of his mind. It was unfair on Blaise and on top of that it was unproductive and futile, not in the least because anything he might do in order to tackle those problems depended mainly on whether the dominants in whose charge he currently was, were playing with him or not. In any case he had no right to derive Blaise of the chance to prove his sincerity. But he would keep a close eye on his emotion at all times, just to be sure that the Italian he had barely ever spoken to aside from the last three days, didn't just want to establish a subtle control over his mind.

At least with Blaise grasping his hands instead of his upper arms, Harry didn't feel that trapped any longer, even though he didn't like both of his hands being incapacitated. Not that he would have been in a better position even with both of his hands free, having no wand. Harry shook his head and sighed before he muttered an "Okay" and focused on the little sparks of magic that were entering his body. Then he loosened the grip on his own magic. It was easier than the last time, for sure, and as soon as the swirls and streams were allowed to run free, they followed the gentle gradient of energy like a starved bloodhound following a fresh track.

Just like before, the awareness of Blaise's presence slammed into him like sudden sunlight after hours spent in darkness, but it wasn't as intense, as all-encompassing as it had been together with Draco. Harry was aware of the physical presence of the other young man, of his magic, but it didn't overwhelm him, the sensations didn't quite merge and didn't synchronize with his own. Blaise's heartbeat, his breath, the feelings were a mere echo, not irritating or disturbing at all; and Harry could sense the boundaries between them, could strictly separate their emotions and their very beings and that helped to ground him again, made him feel - maybe deceptively - as if he was in control of the bond and its machinations. Still the question remained why it was different than before, when Draco had been with them. Silently he posed the question, looking up into Blaise's dark, dark eyes, but he could feel him pondering over the very same thing without being able to come up with a plausible answer. He didn't need the murmured "No idea" to know that both of them were equally clueless.

"But you can feel my emotions just fine, yes?" Blaise leaned forward, his eyes intense and piercing, holding Harry's own. Slowly, Harry nodded.

"Good, then listen:" Blaise said as clearly as possible and brought up a hand to cup younger man's face. "I don't want to control you!"

Harry allowed the touch while he watched the other man with narrowed eyes, listened for a lie in that deep baritone, watching for a flicker in those almost black, almond orbs. But there was none and with the sincerity echoing through Harry's body, he had to admit that in all likelihood the Italian was speaking the truth.  
A thumb caressed his cheek softly; just another level of closeness during their temporary connection, and Blaise himself tilted his head ever so slightly as if leaning into an invisible touch, feeling the echo of his own hand against Harry's skin. "I really don't." He said again and raised his fingers higher to smooth away the frown on Harry's forehead.

All the while Harry didn't know what to feel, what to think; the caress and the subtle sensations were oddly distracting, making his stomach feel as if a snitch fluttered wildly inside of it; but this was exactly the problem, some part of him that wasn't feeling drunken on the other's heady presence in his mind, tried to remind him: even if Blaise really didn't want to take away Harry's will and had done it by accident only, it could happen again. How could Blaise learn to suppress something that he wasn't even aware of doing?

Suddenly he felt himself being cradled in soothing warmth and Blaise pulled him close into a loose hug, almost gently as if he was afraid the feeling might be too much if he tightened his grip any more, might make Harry feel trapped within his embrace. "Shhh. Both of us reacted on instinct and now that we know it can happen, we can learn to fight against it. We'll consult Adler and Ives and find a way for you to overcome that reaction, okay?"

Swallowing heavily, Harry leaned his head against Blaise's shoulder, slightly leaning into the embrace. He didn't answer, there was no need to; he knew his agreement was felt over the bond. It was at least a halfway decent plan, a way to attack the problems piling in front of them instead of hiding from them. He had learned to fight off the imperius curse when he had been only 14, he could learn to throw off this reaction if Blaise said it was possible at all.  
"But why did it happen?"

The arms around him tightened, a movement curiously mirrored by the presence of Blaise in his mind and body. "I was trying to keep you from leaving, colibrí, my magic was, and your magic reacted by telling you to stay close to me as a potential mate."

Merlin, his own magic! His own magic was betraying him now. God, he just wanted to go back to being a normal wizard, back to the exhaustion and emotional void after finally, finally killing Riddle...

A moment later, more of the relaxing warmth seeped from Blaise into Harry's body like a downy blanket, following the tiny sparks that freely flowed between them; slowly, gradually taking effect, prodding, soothing and comforting oh so gently that Harry was none the wiser and he found himself tilting his head, so that his forehead pressed tightly against Blaise's neck and he closed his eyes, his unease and hesitation gradually disintegrating like mist under the warming sun. And his thoughts turned into another direction: if he thought closer about that day, it hadn't felt like a victory at all; rather, he had been so burned out afterwards. Admittedly the last few days had been wonderful in that regard, bringing him back to life in a way he hadn't thought possible. He wanted to stay here, he loved the flying, he loved those connections. God, he even loved having the chance to fight with Draco again. It was just so _normal_ to compete and fight with him, so wonderfully normal as if there hadn't ever been a war… but it was even better now that it was in a friendly, teasing manner.

Gentle fingers began stroking his nape up and down, ruffling the feathers that had softened slightly and gone back to wreaking havoc in his mop of hair. He could feel how strangely glad the Italian seemed at that minor detail and the wave of protectiveness and possessiveness washing over him was surprising and unsettling because Harry was sure that none of those he knew and cared for felt like _that_ about him, not even Ginny, brave and pragmatic Gin. But the faint surprise was sluggish and went to sleep as soon as it had started to awake, helped along by the soothing, very distracting flow of magic, Harry's and Blaise's.

"I don't want you to leave either." The words were breathed against Harry's ear, tickling and almost succeeding in making him squirm. "I want you to stay here and let us help you."

_'But everything's just too much,'_ Harry thought, and before he knew it, words were falling from his lips, coaxed out by the closeness and intimacy of the connection, his general exhaustion and the sluggish warmth bathing his mind and body. Here was someone who felt honest and sincere and willing to listen; Harry didn't need to go through this mess alone. And it was a strong dominant whose guidance he should accept anyway... "It's just so damn much, you know? You are legally allowed to kidnap me and force me to mate…"

"We won't do that. I won't allow anyone to do that to you!"

"I know." Harry whispered, convinced of the truth of the fiercely spoken words from the feelings projected at him through the connection.  
"But now you can control me, too, and it's just … I'm literally at the mercy of you guys and it just … Merlin, Blaise, it sucks."

The Italian's fingers froze against Harry's nape and the brunet felt him tense, a nervous spike in his emotions. But before he could ponder it more closely or ask Blaise about it, he spoke again, hesitatingly. "You know that you are magically stronger than every dominant you'll ever come across, don't you?"

Thoughtfully Harry rubbed his cheek against a muscular shoulder and a sinewy throat, taking in both the heady smell and the rhythmic beating of a steady pulse. It was always difficult for him to think of himself as extraordinary. He hadn't been much above average in school, Hermione was cleverer, Ron the better strategist, Neville was in his opinion at least as capable as he had been. If not for Riddle choosing him, Neville would have had to bear the burden and with how he had turned out in the end, he would have borne it just as well or bad as Harry had. Even though everyone assumed that Harry must be magically powerful, the idea hadn't gained a foothold in his own mind. Because, _everyone_ expected him to have some hidden power; it wouldn't do to have a normal wizard with no unusual talents defeat his evilness, the lord Voldemort in person. But that was just what had happened, nothing more and nothing less. Well, of course one could argue that he hadn't killed Riddle, since he had pretty much killed himself when he had tried to murder the owner of the Elder Wand with the Elder Wand itself and died from the backlash.  
Still. To have Blaise as a Slytherin admit so openly to being weaker than him was quite a surprise.

And it raised a few questions that his currently phlegmatic mind didn't seem to find important enough to really concentrate on. "So, why then would I be in danger outside of the … oh, of course." Because the dominants could control his mind to some extend at least. But if he could learn to suppress that instinctual reaction, he should be fine; Then he didn't need to depend on Draco and Blaise anymore and could actually live … maybe with the two Slytherins who had helped him during and after his transformation, maybe not. The important thing was that he'd have the choice.

Until then, it wasn't exactly bad to be where he was, cradled by magic and strong arms that shouldn't feel as good as they actually did.

Cradled by magic.

Something stirred inside him, knew that he should find that wrong, but the thought was too unsteady, Harry couldn't keep a hold on it and it was as soon forgotten as it had appeared, chased away by Blaise's soothing murmur.

"Harry, just let us keep you safe. At least until you've learned more and can control your magic better. I want you here with me and Draco and together we'll figure everything out. Just give us a little room for mistakes, too. We don't know that much about submissives." He chuckled, the sound and sensations a nice distraction in Harry's own body. "I never thought I would actually meet one."

Harry nodded, a little bit ashamed at his tantrum earlier, especially now that it had proven unjustified; Blaise had posed no threat to him after all, the idea alone was laughable. Merlin, the very scent of him exuded safety.   
No, he shouldn't have accused him, he should have trusted him and he should have reigned in his temper; just as he shouldn't have accused Dumbledore and demolished his office following Sirius' death, should have trusted him to know best instead. Harry really should learn to keep his temper in check.

A sudden flash of concern permeated through their still active connection as Blaise caught up on his darkening mood and tried to guess what had caused it. Was Harry still nervous about his safety after knowing what a dominant could do to him if he wasn't careful? Blaise couldn't fault him for that, if it was the case. With firm movements he rubbed over Harry's back, trying to ease away the tenseness in his sore muscles and the gloominess he was sending off in rippling waves. "Don't worry, no one knows that you are here, you're absolutely safe."

And here went Harry's conscience again, his mind clearing somewhat, throwing itself into ifs and buts with vigour. They couldn't be sure about no one knowing of him being at Zabini Manor, now could they? And all because of Harry. The owl might have been intercepted and someone besides Ron and Hermione might have learnt of his whereabouts. And the worst was: he might not only have endangered himself, but Blaise and Draco as well. Would they be able to really defend the manor when someone tried to get in by all means necessary?

For a moment unaware just how open his feelings were at the moment, Harry yelped in surprise as Blaise pushed him away enough to catch his wrists in a tight grip, staring intently at him. Dangerous, he seemed now, like a predator. It was even more intimidating as Harry could feel a foreboding iciness overcoming the Italian's emotions and he could no longer really say what went on in that doubtlessly cunning mind, clouded with the rising occlumency shields as it was. But the urgency in Blaise's voice at least let Harry's magic draw back from its effort to mediate between the dominant and its owner, as slowly and gently and unobtrusively as it had appeared, but not before sparking a last thought; and the ominous aura surrounding the dark-skinned young man was enough to distract Harry from the way his mind cleared, leaving him only with the sureness that he should be telling his host of something that might prove to be a danger to them all. And privately, every conscious part of him, too, knew that it was high time to let the two dominants know of his hopefully little transgression so that they could prepare. Therefore he didn't hesitate to answer, when Blaise demanded to know what was wrong, rather than requiring it, his voice ringing with a steely wintriness, that didn't sit well with harry at all.

"Yesterday," he started, trying to encounter the heavy stare as calmly as he could, "I wrote a letter to my friends and told them where I am…"

"You did _what_?! How?"

At the threatening growl, Harry hurried to explain and justify himself. He didn't want to fight again, especially not with the connection still in place that had soothed and comforted him so much. "I ordered one of the elves to send it. You yourself made it possible by telling them to treat me like a Zabini, so don't you punish them for it." He said, defensive of his actions and that little female elf that he had tricked. It wasn't the House Elf's fault.  
"You were such a bastard…" He started in a way of explanation.

"Do you ever stop to _think_?!" Blaise grabbed and shook his shoulders once and as he lost his calm, a flood of emotions splashed over Harry, hushing him with their overwhelming intensity. Anger, concern, protectiveness. Above all protectiveness.  
All the while it was only the subtle influence of Harry's magic answering to Blaise's closeness that held the submissive still, even though some parts of Harry's consciousness started to strain against that, the instincts he had developed during the war too strong to be completely overruled by his wayward magic.

"Don't you care at all about what happens to you? God, that gryffindorish stupidity, always courting danger!"

"I don't…" Harry started to protest, taken aback a little bit that the Italian's face was just so cold and freaking emotionless while obviously, he was everything but. It reminded him of how he had lain on the ground, tied up and honestly nervous as hell while the dark skinned dominant had loomed over him, telling him off for trying to escape via the floo connection. It made him uncomfortably aware of the three or four inches that Blaise had on him and of how he could control him by just showing off his magic surging over the surface of his wings. He felt threatened and it caused the magical control to snap.

"Did you ever think about what might happen if someone were to intercept the owl?"

"If you hadn't been such an asshole I wouldn't have done it!" Harry argued back, still trying to make sense of the very contradictory indications on Blaise's mood that the Italian's expression and body language and the sensations from the connection gave him and determine whether or not he should try to disarm him now that he still had the chance. The dark skinned man looked like a prowling panther, ready to pounce but ... there was still only the anger and fear and protectiveness and concern to be felt over the bond and Harry didn't think Blaise would attack him. Ever. It reassured him enough to not hold himself back after the unfortunate comment the Italian made next.

"First that completely insane thing with the floo and now this!"

It was the wrong thing to say. Harry still thought that his flight attempt was the one justified action he had undertaken after all Draco and Blaise had said and done that afternoon and it had him seething instantly.  
"All your fault for taking me prisoner…" he snarled, his voice rising.

"We didn't…"

"… and humiliating me, telling me to lie back and think of England!"

"We told you from the start that we'd never…"

"And your stupid rules! Making me a prisoner while pretending to be oh so generous and lenient!"

"WE ONLY TRIED TO PROTECT YOU!"

Silence reigned, so oppressively that Harry thought he could hear his own heartbeat. Over the connection he could feel Blaise being just as surprised as he was with the loss of control the usually so solemn Slytherin had shown. And the tenseness.

And was he nervous?

"You could have been seriously hurt, Harry. And I was just so angry that you seemed so nonchalant about it, that you had done it without even thinking of the consequences … I won't allow you to endanger yourself like that!" He pressed out with all the determination of someone used to getting his will.

At that, Harry found himself speechless and he had to bite his lower lip and turn away. In his life there had been only a handful of people so protective of him, and all of them had been or still were very dear to him. Molly, for example, or Sirius. Most had always known that Harry was literally fated (or should he say prophesized) to get into precarious situations, to have to fight and kill and they hadn't stood in his way, and some like Hermione and Ron had helped him wherever they could. But only few had been actually trying to spare him all that, as laughable as it seemed to challenge fate.  
Well, at least it explained why Blaise had seemed so afraid in his bout of protectiveness, if he feared for Harry...  
"But that doesn't give you the right to treat me like you have." He said finally, calmer now but irritated and insistent nonetheless. "You could have simply explained; we are no longer 15, for God's sake! And I'm not sorry for writing the letter, though I regret if it'll put you or Draco in jeopardy."

"But not you." Blaise said and Harry felt a sharp pang of regret pulsing through the temporary bond before Blaise broke away, his wings shrinking back into his shoulders. Harry watched him warily, unsure if he should feel relieved or not that they were two strictly separate beings once more. It had been a confusing experience and intense, even if not as intense as it had been the first time; but it had also been … rather illuminating.

But god! Had he really _snuggled up_ to Blaise? Damn it… this was so … so … not right! Definitely not right! It was a sign that Blaise's and his own magic had again meddled with his thoughts and emotions, had made him more pliable and amenable than he normally would have been. Merlin, this was worse than he had initially thought... this time he hadn't even noticed when exactly he had woken up, and he had spoken and acted during it all, had said things that were in his thoughts, somewhere deeply buried in his mind but which he would never have voiced out loud. And Blaise ... Blaise hadn't been aware that something was wrong or Harry would have felt it.

Oh god... he desperately needed to find out how to recognize the influence of magic. Fervently he started replaying the last few minutes in his mind, flushing at the humiliating things he had done and said. Damn, he should postpone doing this once he was alone... or should he?

Quickly he glanced towards the other young man, but Blaise seemed to be blissfully unaware of Harry's renewed distress, fiddling with something on his right wrist with nimble fingers and Harry decided that he'd rather find out more on his own and order his thoughts before he addressed the matter with Blaise and Draco. After all it was mainly his problem, the two dominants seemed to be blissfully unaffected by Harry's magic. Except ...

Whenever they were close to Harry they seemed to _need_ to touch him in some way or the other, fleeting little gestures that he would never have expected from Blaise or Draco. It almost didn't seem in character for the two Slytherins who didn't feel comfortable sharing their emotions with Harry, who had learned Occlumency, who had seemed so regal and haughty at first when he had come to the manor, aloof almost, certainly arrogant. Two days since then and their behaviour had changed drastically.  
If their thoughts were subtly guided by their own magic like Harry's were... then their current behaviour was ... still not false since the magic only seemed to merely work with ideas and thoughts that were already there in some way or the other, only causing certain lines of thought to be suppressed while others stood out more clearly.

It was guiding them together, steering their attention away from sensitive topics or behaviour patterns that might endanger a mating between them.

"Oh my god." Harry whispered. He looked to Blaise again, caught the traitorous shimmering of a disillusionment charm right above Blaise's hand, but felt unable to tear his thoughts away from his realisation. Not even when after a moment and quiet click a delicate, thin bracelet dangled from the Italian's finger, no longer invisible.  
They were screwed, equally and all of them.

He only forced himself to pay attention when Blaise began to speak, in an urgent, hurried manner. "This, Harry, is an emergency portkey." He said and took one of Harry's hands.

Harry shook his head. "I hate portkeys..." but the Italian ignored him.

"It is unregistered, so don't tell anyone you have it." He continued instead as he fastened the silver chain around the maybe somewhat scrawny wrist with sure, quick movements, where it immediately became transparent and almost invisible against the tanned skin. It still felt warm, but it was nothing against the burning feeling of Blaise's fingertips. Did Blaise feel the same? Was magic a universal language that affected them all in the very same manner? Was the lust and the desire he had seen in both Draco's and Blaise's eyes real or was it only their magic telling them they should find a _supposedly_ submissive Vykélari desirous? Did he desire them in turn or only their magic or was that all his magic? So many questions and he couldn't even find an answer to one of them.

"It will stay invisible for as long as you wear it. I don't want you to ever take it off until this whole matter is resolved and you may keep it afterwards if you wish to. If anything happens, it will take you to a secret safe house in England. As soon as you get there, my mother, I and Draco will know and one of us will come. Promise me, you'll use it if something happens!"

"I … but …" Startled and a little bit worried, Harry frowned up at the Italian. Did Blaise really think that the letter posed such a threat?

"Promise me!" He urged and Harry startled a bit before he turned his gaze downwards again, letting his fingers wander over the smooth rings of the invisible chain hesitatingly, a shiver running down his spine. But this was Blaise's emergency portkey, what if something _did_ happen, how would the Slytherin get away? Harry would never run from danger and leave anyone behind, anyone. Even obnoxious, oddly protective and totally confusing Slytherins that _Harry's magic_ found utterly gorgeous. "What about you?"

The question earned him a smile that bordered on tenderness and another brush against his cheek with adept fingers. "I can take care of myself, don't worry."

"And I can't?" Harry exclaimed indignantly, but he rolled his eyes and fell silent at Blaise's piercing look. It was oddly sweet that an I'm-all-for-self-preservation-Slytherin was forsaking his own safety for his, even if he had been the one fighting a war and not the one watching from the sidelines. Or it would be if Harry didn't have the suspicion that it was Blaise's magic urging him to protect his potential mate. But no, that wasn't true, not if it worked like Harry's own, only enforcing notions and impulses that were already there. Blaise really seemed to want to protect him. What an odd - and oddly warming - thought.

"Now swear you'll use it and stay within the safe house until either Draco, I, or my mother come and get you."

"Fine" Harry finally nodded with a resigned sigh. "How do I activate it?"

"By voice. It's 3-0-5, my birthday: the 30th of May. It will only work if the bearer says the numbers separately and without any word in between. But if you are ever attacked, it will activate automatically the moment you are in a live-threatening condition and then put you under a stasis spell until help arrives."

"Wow." Harry wasn't really sure if he should be impressed or appalled. "And you've been wearing it constantly? That's … paranoid, isn't it?"

Blaise didn't answer for a long moment, avoiding Harry's gaze as he touched the invisible bracelet with one finger, stroking over the chain. "I ordered them during the last months of the war … after I learned that Draco had failed his task. I wanted to give him one so he could flee if things got even worse, but I couldn't get the bracelets into the school unnoticed and I couldn't contact him outside of it, with … everyone who was in Malfoy manor."

Awkwardly, Harry looked down to where Blaise played with the invisible bracelet around his wrist, fervently wishing he'd know what to say. Hell, if he knew what to feel, that would be a start. It was as if these bracelets were something intimate, something between Draco and Blaise; a promise of some sort, of safety and loyalty and trust. And ... and love. And now he'd been given one of them, not as a loan but actually as a gift to keep. Even if Blaise's magic might have initiated it, the Italian wouldn't have given up something he obviously treasured if Harry meant nothing to him.

"I … thank you."

And just as if he'd not been rattled enough, Blaise suddenly leaned forward and, taking Harry's bent head between his hands, he pressed his lips against the Gryffindor's brow, warm, soft and absolutely shocking. Harry froze as an aura of magical power accompanied the dominant like the soft perfume of flowers. Heavy and sweet like lilies, beautiful, white lilies. This time Harry felt the dizzying warmth that seemed to seep into his very soul but he hesitated a moment too long to break the contact with the handsome Italian because of the gift he had just received, that demanded he give something back, yield something in turn; Harry just didn't know if this was the kind of yielding that was required. Indecisive for a moment, he brought up his hands, probably to gently press the other Vykélari away, but once his fingers folded around the dark skinned wrists, all he could do was hold tightly onto them, the very notion of moving away alien and incomprehensible. God, if he had just a moment more to _think_.  
But then his head was tilted upwards and Blaise's face was so close that Harry had to lick over his suddenly dry lips. The magic around him changed, sizzling in the air full of potency and electrifying excitement and diving back into him like daggers, bringing with it the taste of power. A hand glided from the side of his face, stroking through his hair and finally cupping the back of his head, while Harry felt his heart beat louder and louder, though he honestly wasn't sure if the blood rushed out of his head or in. All Harry knew was that Blaise was going to kiss him. He was actually going to use those soft, full lips and kiss him! The first man to ever do that to Harry and should he be disturbed? Harry was sure he should at least be _something_ …  
Doing something. Moving away probably; but there were insistent fingers rubbing against his neck and the back of his head, running through his hair sensuously and black, blown eyes stared at him so damn intently until Harry couldn't look any longer and closed his own.  
But not before there were lips on his, hot and sweet and soft. Those lips! Sliding against his own, nipping, teasing and oh … fuck! Harry almost jerked as a tongue licked over his lips and a thumb stroke over his cheek and he just had to open his mouth, didn't he? With that insistent tongue gently forcing its way in, tasting sweet and a little bit sour like the balsamic sauce they had had with their lunch. But underneath that was something else that Harry had no name for, especially not when that agile muscle invaded his mouth like it did now, flicking against his own. A flutter in his chest and stomach transformed into impossible heat that travelled down to his groin, tingled through his whole body.

And his magic, happy that it was being indulged and that someone else with the ability to let the magical currents dance around them was so close, shot out, twirling around the two of them, interweaving with Blaise's own. And just like that, every feeling seemed to intensify even further and Blaise's touch felt like fire, but so good as it seared his skin! And he had made the Italian moan! The sound reverberated through every cell of his body.

The hand caressing his cheek wandered down over Harry's shoulder, along his side so softly it made Harry shiver from the contrast to the insistent lips moving so passionately against his own, and then they sneaked around his hip to grab his … wait a minute!

Immediately Harry opened his eyes wide in shock to look at the closed lids of Blaise's and when he found his hands curiously pressed against firm pectorals, stroking and kneading... well, doing things he really shouldn't have been doing, Harry used the position to shove the Slytherin off of him with all his might, hard enough to make him stumble backwards against the far wall of the corridor.

Surprised black eyes met his own.

"Don't you do that!" Harry snarled, his voice trembling faintly from the lingering, intense pleasure, and a little bit higher than it should be. God, Merlin and whoever else, that had been … just … so … rather … and then … god, oh god. He shouldn't have been doing that, he shouldn't have been enjoying it! Not when it brought forth their magic and made them behave like starving vampires intent on sucking on each other's skin and lips and _magic_! And now he felt so shamefully uncomfortable in his too tight trousers, possibly harder than he had ever been before, and oh, please, don't let him see it… god, why the hell did Blaise have to kiss him? And after he knew that he could control Harry... he almost groaned as an idea struck him: what if that had been Blaise's magic urging him to act on his desire - if those were his feelings at all. The Italian was probably as helpless as he was.

There at least was no suspicious twitching hinting at a guilty conscience as the dark skinned man moistened his lips, frowned and then mumbled out a somewhat confused "But…"

"No buts! Kiss me again and I'll castrate you!" Harry muttered darkly but without much conviction, trying to calm his still pounding heartbeat and ignore the tingling residue of overwhelming pleasure echoing through him.  
"God, Blaise! You're not even thinking clearly!"

With a sigh, the Italian raised one hand in a placating gesture, his eyes still dark and his lips bruised and damn it, it wasn't only Harry's magic, the guy really was gorgeous. "Listen Harry, I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to..."

Frustrated with himself, Harry wiped heavy strands of unruly, black hair out of his eyes. "Just stay away until we have our fucking magic under control, Blaise, I mean it!"

For a moment Harry thought he had successfully made his point but then a mischievous glint entered those black onyx eyes and a tiny smirk tucked at Blaise's lips and Harry immediately knew that all the damned Slytherin had heard was Harry giving him free reign once they had their magic under control.

"Asshole!" Harry muttered beneath his breath, turned and strode away, afraid of what he might be doing if he stayed for a moment longer. Or what Blaise might be doing...  



	18. A Fan's Crusade

Pansy was in a right snit. And she had every right to be, in her humble opinion. Nothing in her life during the last few years had worked out the way it should have. First Draco had had the audacity to fall in love with their school's pretty boy and asked her to cover up for him so that neither Blaise's nor his parent's would learn of their affair. Of course she'd said yes, what else should a well-mannered, noble-minded girl of a respectable pureblood family have done if a friend asked for her help? Especially since she loved the two idiots. Very grudgingly, mind you, obstinate bastards that they were. Merlin, and without her, they would have just managed to make away with themselves somehow, or throw their cover, or destroy their twisted joy in life in some way or the other. Somehow, she just knew it; they were reckless and narrow-minded like that. Nonetheless she wouldn't have been averse of becoming the next Mrs Malfoy, or Zabini for that matter.

Well, it wasn't that bad, Pansy guessed, she'd just find herself someone else. Preferably rich, mute and short-lived.

But that wasn't really her problem, right now. If she pondered on the matter more closely, it might have even been somewhat odd to really marry one of them, they were friends first and foremost, after all. Well, of course there was the one time when she had been with Draco after Blaise had dumped him because the Malfoys had decided to stand behind their Lord, united, after his return. The Italian had been so furious at Draco for endangering himself because he knew it couldn't end well, what with the Dark Lord probably still being angry at Lucius for claiming to have been imperiused during the First War. Blaise had expected the resurrected wizard to take his anger out on his less than loyal followers with cruel punishments and asked Draco to join him and declare himself neutral.  
Draco had refused, hadn't left his family and after a shouting match of epic dimensions (well, Draco had shouted at least, Blaise had glared and growled, that didn't mean it had been any less impressive) the Italian had decided that someone neutral couldn't be with a proclaimed follower of the Dark Lord. In an act of defiance and stubbornness Draco had started dating Pansy just to make his ex-lover jealous. And Blaise had ignored it. Because they were dickheads like that.

Pansy had known it, and enjoyed the attention and Draco's gifts while she could. And his kisses. Which had been acceptable.

...

Okay, fine, pretty damn good... But it was to be expected, after all: Pansy was gorgeous and a formidable kisser and Draco looked well enough and wasn't completely useless in the kissing department, either.

And so, when her two stubborn friends had gotten back together, colliding like two magnets that pulled each other close and continued just where they had left off without a thought to Pansy, only her pride had been hurt. But only momentarily (she had not held any delusions about Draco's or Blaise's love for each other), so really, that wasn't her problem right now.

Neither was the fact that her reputation had suffered somewhat due to her well-considered suggestion that it might be better, in a purely utilitarian sense, to throw the Wonder-Boy out to the wolves when the castle had been besieged. It had been the logical thing to do and really she couldn't understand why it had made everyone so angry. And damn it, it wasn't as if Draco hadn't tried to give the boy over, Gregory had told her that, the only difference was that she had done it in front of the whole student body and who-knows-who-else in the Great Hall. It hadn't been a very Slytherin thing to do, she had to admit that and so she bore the consequences now with the grace and humility befitting someone of her station.  
Well, or something close to that. But though it was a problem and annoying as hell, she could deal with the public's aggravation at behalf of their saviour. After all, people were rather forgetful with the right incentives and if she played her part right, no one would speak about it in a year.

And she could deal with the Dark Lord having lost the war. Even though some things might have been better if he hadn't. But really, the last year in Hogwarts had been so ... messy! And depressing. Everywhere she had looked there were students playing martyrs, which was plain right stupid when they just could have spared themselves the pain, played along and waited for the right time to strike. That would have been the intelligent thing to do, the Slytherin thing to do. Alas! The majority of Hogwarts consisted of moronic not-snakes. Pansy hated martyrs with fervour, almost as much as she hated lunatics and some of the new teachers had been undeniably lunatic. She even thought Headmaster Snape had disliked them and _he_ was a paragon of a Slytherin, truly. A double-agent for years! One had to admire his self-control and resolve...  
So really, reconciling herself to the demise of the Dark Lord wasn't that hard at all.

She could also deal with giving up one of her two-way mirrors that was connected to Zabini Manor in Italy, as Blaise had asked her to do. It wasn't as if she would die of withdrawal if she couldn't speak with Draco and Blaise for a few weeks - it wasn't as if they were her only friends - and after all, she could always go to Narcissa, for some tea, a nice chat and then use the Malfoys' mirror instead. No problem. At all.  
Even though it peeved her endlessly while the two love-birds had been on their romantic little trip during which Blaise had proposed to Draco, and doubtlessly shagged him silly multiple times a day. Or the other way round. Really, her peers were usually just so _boring_...

What she couldn't deal with, however, was giving her mirror to the infuriating horde of red-haired weasels! And that was exactly what she would do. Because Blaise had asked her. Nicely.

She sighed, very much martyred, though she would never admit to that. The things one did for friendship...

Nonetheless... "I hate you!" she grumbled to the small mirror in her hands, glaring at Blaise's and Draco's faces, which were smirking at her with unconcealed amusement. Both were small figures in the reflecting surface - because they were not walking towards a multi-storey shed of a house that shouldn't have been standing there in a show of defiance against gravity and the laws of nature. No, they were sitting on comfortable arm chairs in front of an enlarged mirror, the bastards. Behind them she could see a wide window through which the sun mocked her with the warm light while heavy rainclouds spread endlessly over Pansy. It made her hate the very world.

"Oh, please, Pansy!" Draco said through his grin. "This doesn't become more believable the more often you say it, you know? Only more ridiculous."

"But I really hate you for making me go to those blood traitors!"

Even as small as they were in the mirror, Pansy thought that Blaise was rolling his eyes. "You could have declined."

Draco nodded "But I am glad you didn't, we are very grateful for your help."  
He said with his most charming smile and his interruption was the only thing that saved his bloody fiancé from getting ripped apart by a real good tongue lashing. After all she really needed to improve her reputation and if people somehow heard about how Pansy Parkinson had assisted the Saviour and his friends in their oh so difficult situation, then all the better.

"Absolutely!" Blaise continued, "We owe you!"

"We'll make up for it, once we return. Take you shopping..."  
Ha! If Draco thought that would be enough to reward her for playing nice with those Weasleys...

"...and to that little French restaurant you love so much..."  
Well, the reservations were difficult to get, she had to grant Blaise that, still...

"...and a visit to the opera after that? Or ballet? Whichever you prefer."

"Fine!" She sniffed and started walking again. "I'll be nice to them."

"Thank you, Pansy." Blaise said, sounding so damn sincere that Pansy had to purse her lips and try to forcibly hang on to her anger. In vain.  
"Well," she sighed, again very much like a martyr, "as long as you know how much it costs me... anything for you dear. Just make sure the two of you secure your submissive soon and come back, I am bored out of my mind without you here. You surely take your sweet time with that, anyway. I never heard of a dominant taking so long to mate after the abduction of a submissive.

"Pansy. He is not just a submissive."

"Oh, I know!" She laughed coquettishly even while her gaze rested sharply on Draco. Pansy knew him well enough to know that this comment was more than a testimonial to his usual obsession with the Gryffindor paragon.  
"He is the _Boy Who Lived_! Does that matter, though? He'll still be a submissive in the hands of two dominants. And you really should hurry... shouldn't he have his magic back by now? You know he'll become dangerous then and so much more difficult to control. You have blocked it, haven't you?"

The heavy silence was answer enough. Pansy blinked in surprise, torn between dismay at her friends' stupidity and amusement. What in Merlin's name were they thinking? "Don't tell me you let Potter of all people walk around with that much magic at his disposal after having kidnapped him?! Oh, this is rich!"

"Pansy!" Draco said with a frosty glare. "It is none of your concern how we treat our submissive!"

With a snort, Pansy shook her head. "So at least you still want to claim him..."

"It is up to a submissive to establish a mating bond, Pansy," Blaise said quietly, "and Harry would never do that if we took his magic."

Draco nodded even while he looked aside, looking awfully pensive. "You have no idea how he reacted to it being inaccessible during the transformation. He can't bear the thought of losing his magic and we won't do that to him."

"You are smitten!" Pansy breathed, even while it came to her mind that the words might actually be too plebeian for a miracle like this. Or a disaster. It probably depended on one's perspective.

"I am not." Draco's voice was cold and his eyes murderous, and Pansy couldn't help but wish she would stand directly in front of him. He was always so difficult to read, but with him appearing so small in the two-way-mirror, it was well-nigh impossible and she would rather like to know if another comment of hers might have dire consequences.

"Think, Pansy," Blaise interrupted her thoughts with his low, silky murmur. "That he is the Boy Who Lived indeed changes everything. He cannot be kept away from the public's eye and in his case, no one would ignore a forced bonding. If he told his friends later that he was so much as unduly pressured into a mating with us and they went to the press or the ministry, the wizarding public would rip us and our families to pieces."

It would have sounded reasonable and Pansy might have believed the two of them if Draco hadn't slipped earlier. 'We won't do that to him' ... no, this sounded as if there was more emotion than rationality guiding their behaviour regarding the Golden Boy right now. And that might become a problem. Even dangerous.  
And the fact that they were asking Pansy to give up her mirror, when she _loved_ her collection (there was nothing better to efficiently get and spread certain information), bespoke of a certain sense of awareness for the situation: if Blaise and Draco thought that enabling Potter to speak with his friends was the logical thing to do, that it was crucial for a successful mating, and that it didn't betray emotions they shouldn't have towards the Boy Wonder, they would just have asked one of their parents to give up a mirror, Mrs Zabini was even currently living at Malfoy Manor and not even using her own mirrors...

This was worse than she had thought at first, it wasn't good if Blaise and Draco became personally invested in this whole affair. And why should they even be interested in someone else? They had each other, it had been enough before, why shouldn't it be now?

When the Italian had contacted her the day before and told her about Harry Potter's new status as a Vykélari submissive, she had assumed that they would force him to mate and then keep him on a tight leash. They weren't supposed to give him a choice. They weren't even supposed to grant him so much leeway. Narcissa and Lucius both would be furious if they knew. Amalyne, too, probably; but Pansy didn't know her that well.

And if Potter's stay at Lanai Manor didn't result in a mating, the purebloods in Britain would lose all respect for both of the dominants that had been too indecisive to exploit the windfall of a submissive practically falling into their lap.

In any case, if Potter the stupid sod managed to hurt either Blaise or Draco, if he refused them, Pansy would make him vanish into a world of pain.

To her friends, though, she only gave a conceding nod. "I just hope you know what you're doing. Now shut up, I'm almost there."

Carefully, she put the mirror into a sea-green velvet case and then stored it away into the handbag dangling from her arm. If someone other than Granger or her weasel boyfriend opened, she didn't want them to see the mirror. It was Draco's and Blaise's wish that Potter's friends got it without any time-consuming detours.  
Then she moved towards the front door of what looked as if it once had been a barn, trying to keep her outrageously expensive boots out of the various puddles in the courtyard.

* * *

  
The atmosphere in the Burrow had been tense during the last few days, with the memory of Harry's dramatic transformation as an ever-present shadow hanging oppressively over the dining table and the knowledge of where the young wizard was, with whom and for what reason weighting heavily on everyone's mind.

The worst was that there was nothing to be done. Even if Narcissa Malfoy had disclosed Harry's current location - which she hadn't - the fact remained that any interference of a normal wizard in what was usually euphemised as 'Vykélari courtship', was highly illegal and punished with five to ten years in Azkaban. Harry would have their heads if they got themselves landed into the wizarding prison, besides, once there, they'd be of no use to their friend.

And so far they had already depleted all the legal means, they had even gone so far as to ask the newly appointed minister Kingsley Shacklebold for help. But he had only told them to wait and stressed to them the importance of keeping their silence. It had been disillusioning to be reprimanded for coming to the minister in the first place, even though he was right: strictly speaking they hadn't been allowed to tell anyone of the situation after being filled in by the Malfoy matriarch. And since nobody - even the minister - should have any knowledge of the situation, no one could help.

That of course didn't mean that Hermione and Ron wouldn't keep on trying. The famous Golden Trio's smart one had spent the last few days and a good portion of her savings in various more or less respectable bookshops with rather disappointing results. But finally after days and nights of asking, begging, demanding and reading, so much reading, there might be the first hint of a silver lining: just this very morning an elderly ministry owl had delivered a copy of the Vykélari laws. It had been a real nightmare to get one, too and Hermione had needed Percy's help, who, in his best lecturing, know-it-all manner, had threatened the ministry employee in charge with an official complaint and legal consequences for curtailing their right of access.

She had just worked through the initial few paragraphs together with Ron under the anxious glances of a very raddled Molly, when a soft rapping at the front door interrupted their reading.

Now, for a household like the Weasleys that might not be unusual per se, but at least unexpected. Since Ottery St. Catchpole was located rather far from the major wizarding communities in Britain and most of their closest friends not even lived in the same county, and since apparating wasn't the safest means of travelling, most of their acquaintances entered their home via the floo; and official matters were usually handled via the owl post. They didn't have much to do with the Fawcetts, the Diggorys and the Lovegoods and other wizarding families living close by, not these days in any case and aunt Muriel ... she expected to _be_ visited.  
So while Hermione didn't even raise her hazel eyes from her lecture, her lips moving incessantly along with the words, Ron and Molly shared a questioning gaze over the paper covered table.

After but a moment, Molly shrugged. "Well, go on dear, I'll just see who it is..." And the sturdy witch started to bustle out of the room.

Quickly, Ron pushed himself up from his place at the paper-filled table, agilely manoeuvring around other chairs, and past his mother. "I'll go, mom. Why don't you make more tea? Earl Grey or Assam ... we're going to need loads and loads of it."  
In all honesty, Ron really just needed to get away for some minutes before he started tearing papers apart... Hermione would never forgive him for such a heinous crime, not after all the trouble she'd gone through to get her hands on them in the first place.

But if he read or heard the word 'submissive' one more time, while he inevitably had to think of Harry, he couldn't guarantee for anything. He hated how dry and austere the books and texts of law were, how pretentiously they praised the magical power and control a mated _dominant_ could achieve, how those pureblood Vykélari justified depriving half of their kind of the right to make any significant decisions for themselves with some nonsense about safety and how submissives needed to be protected because they were so precious and rare and because their magic was wilder and more difficult to control.

Well duh! Of course it was more difficult to control; their power levels were many times higher than a dominant's...

Rolling his shoulders once to ease the tense knots another sleepless night had brought with it, Ron strode out of the room to the front door and pulled it open.

Immediately he wished he hadn't when he got face to wrist with a young brunette, a beringed wrist she had obviously raised just then to knock again and that he only barely evaded.  
Ron recognized her distinct features immediately; that still somewhat pug-nosed but otherwise handsome face was impossible not to recognize; as was the grimace she wore: Pansy Parkinson's lips were curled in what probably had been meant to be a smile, but the effect, sadly, was destroyed by the disgust twitching over her face every now and then. She wore an elegantly tapered, knee-length dress of a dark grey, checked pattern with a slit necklace, the whole ensemble hugging her slender frame flatteringly. Her wand was drawn and pointed at a pair of black, high-heeled boots that she must have been cleaning from the mud in the courtyard only moments before: the leather was shiny and unblemished.  
Ron narrowed his eyes dangerously, all his warning bells doing a grand impression of a dramatic hand bell choral in his head. What the hell was that snake doing at the front door of the Burrow at a Monday morning, before even the owl from the Daily Prophet had arrived?

"Parkinson!" He said frostily, not so much a greeting as an acknowledgement of her unwelcome, unexpected presence.

Her lips strained into a pained smile as if she couldn't quite believe being where she currently was herself. Yeah, Ron couldn't either...

"Weasley." She waited for a moment, and then continued as it became apparent that the red-haired man wouldn't take the initiative, a small tightening of her lips the only indication of her irritation. "Won't you ask me to come in?"

Ron crossed his arms and stayed otherwise unmoving in the doorway, but his eyes flashed and all his muscles tensed and strained under his skin, like a hyppogryph whose annoyance build and rose, bubbling like boiling water until he'd strike down the nuisance before him.  
"No, Parkinson, certainly not. What do you want?" He asked tartly; two months just weren't enough to forget that this woman had wanted to give Harry to Voldemort just to save her own pitiful hide. It was rather audacious that she dared coming to the Burrow so soon ... or ever.

"Well," the brunette began, letting the word linger on her tongue until Ron wondered if it had paralysed the muscle, "I am actually here as a favour to your friend, Potter. You see," she continued quickly, when Ron's eyes narrowed even further, "Draco and Blaise - you know, Blaise Zabini - they approached me because Potter wanted to speak with you and..."

"Where is he?" Ron asked, stepping forward and letting the door behind him shut, he looked around quickly for a moment, as if he might be able to see his friend somewhere. Merlin, was Harry alright? Had they already mated him and therefore come back into the open? His stomach clenched tightly at the idea of them parading Harry around like some prize trophy.

"He's still with Blaise and Draco, of course. But as I was saying, they contacted me because he wanted to speak with you, so here I am, to lend you my precious two-way-mirror."

Ron looked at her sharply while Parkinson muttered something below her breath that sounded suspiciously like 'out of the goodness of my heart'.

Why the hell would they allow Harry to come into any contact with the outside world? Every book, every document he and Hermione, and at times Ginny had sifted carefully during the past few days, agreed on that one point: a dominant coming upon an unmated submissive (he really needed to find some alternative term) would hide the both of them away until the bond was safely in place, however long that took; which usually wasn't longer than a few days.

Warily Ron watched Parkinson, as she opened her handbag and pulled out a slim velvet case, that might have been the size of one of their smaller school books, his stomach twisting nervously and he had to fight the urge to just grab the thing out of Parkinson's hands. But his concern for Harry hadn't yet clouded his judgement enough to do something stupid and rash like that. He didn't even know if the brunette really was in league with Malfoy or if she had gotten wind of the incident from some other source and was just acting, fishing for information, maybe ... for another Vykélari?

Or was she here on Malfoy's behalf?  
After all, the books had also made it clear that sometimes, especially when a submissive wasn't inclined to mate, his closest family or friends were dragged into the mess as blackmail material. Ron knew he had to be careful... especially when dealing with someone sent by Zabini and Malfoy, who Harry certainly wouldn't mate willingly.

In front of him, Parkinson drew a small, rectangular mirror from the sea-green velvet case, careful to not touch the reflective surface and leave fingerprints to mar it. She turned it towards Ron, so that the red-head was able to see the golden glow of a luxurious sitting room bathed in sunlight. It was probably beautiful if one cared for all that luxury, the expensive wood and fabrics used in the furnishings... Ron still preferred his own orange Chudley-Cannons shrine-like room.

What caught his attention though, were the two men sitting on arm chairs as if they were thrones, each the other's opposite at least in their colouring, but so similar in their bearings. Still as proud as ever they regarded him coolly but also with a hint of open calculation, as if they tried to read him and Ron understood that maybe for the first time they saw him as an important token on the playboard of life: if they really intended to let him speak with Harry in order to make him more agreeable to a mating, they had to know that Ron could also influence his friend. He might sway Harry to be more open towards his captors, to stay with them willingly for the next few weeks at least; or he might abet him to even more open rebellion, might incite Harry to fight both purebloods with all his might.  
Such was the power of a best friend.

"Good morning, Weasley." Zabini spoke first, making Ron's gaze switch to his small image in the mirror. Though the youngest Weasley son hadn't had much to do with him before during their school days, he of course knew the Italian by sight and name, but nothing beyond such mundane information; which only meant that he would need to use much more flexible tactics than he would have done with the Malfoy heir alone and slowly discover the dark skinned man's weak points.

"Zabini, Malfoy." Ron nodded once, his jaw and voice tight but for now it should better be enough for those snakes if he conveyed his willingness to talk, they couldn't expect him to be polite.

With narrow eyes Ron watched Malfoy's lips twitch into the barest hint of a smile. "I hope we didn't wake you or someone of your family with this early ambush on a Monday morning."

"You didn't."

"Well, isn't that wonderful!" Parkinson quipped with a fake smile, sarcasm dripping from her lips like drool from Fang's mouth.  
"Anyway, I'm off." And she scrunched up her nose a bit as she threw the Burrow a last derisive glare. "Be careful with the mirror, Weasley. I'm sure you couldn't afford to replace it if something happened. Draco, Blaise, contact me as soon as you are back."

Not even awaiting an answer, the brunette started to make her way back to the edge of the Weasley property with exaggerated care not to step into any puddles. Then, she apparated off. It somewhat surprised Ron that she would actually bother to be polite enough not to apparate on the ground of another wizarding family's home, especially if said family were actually known bloodtraitors.

"Don't worry." Malfoy said, drawing Ron's attention to the mirror in his hand once more. "Should the mirror be damaged I will personally account for it."

Ron smiled humourlessly. "What a clumsy move, Malfoy, even for you." And it was. After years and years of taunting Ron over his family's difficult financial situation, it was rather inelegant to try and win him over with something material like this.

"Think what you will."

"I'll do that, thanks a lot..." Ron sneered, while moving a bit away from his house. It was better if they remained undisturbed and unobserved during the next few minutes. The last Ron needed, was for his mother to storm in and keep him from getting any useful information out of the two Slytherins. Molly had always been a bit impulsive when it came to the safety and wellbeing of those she considered to be family. "Where is Harry?"

Malfoy tapped with his index finger on the arm rest of his chair, his eyes never wavering from Ron's. "I think he is asleep still. Yesterday he flew for the first time and he was rather beaten afterwards."

He was becoming a better actor, Ron thought, he really had no idea if the git was lying or not. Well then, he would just have to attack more aggressively. "And yet you are contacting me, even though you say this farce with the mirror is only for Harry to be able to speak with me and Hermione. One can only assume that you don't want Harry to know of this..."

"Of course." Malfoy cocked his head "And you must already know why."

Next to him, Zabini leaned forwards a bit, propping both of his elbows onto the armrests of his chair and folding his hands. "Harry is in a rather difficult situation right now but he is starting to accept his inheritance, even find enjoyment in it."

Ron snorted. "You mean you are starting to break his resistance!"

"I mean that he is starting to enjoy his inheritance, he likes the flying for example, and other aspects. And he just began to stop acting as if all of this would just vanish if only he ignored it determinedly enough."

Harry ignoring problems? Ron frowned in thought, that wasn't something Harry would normally do. His best friend never shied away from problems; sometimes he postponed dealing with them but he never denied having them and in the end he always took responsibility. What had the two dominants done to Harry to make him 'ignore' his inheritance out of spite? Or were they lying?

"Weasley," Draco started, his voice a hint deeper and warmer than before, "I know you care for him. He needs the chance to learn to take control of his magic or it will take control of him. For now it is essential for his safety and yours that he is kept away from other dominants trying to claim him at every opportunity..."

"Other dominants? I think Harry should be kept away from _you_ , you in particular, Malfoy!"

"I won't do anything..."

"Anything what? Two months ago you were perfectly fine with giving him over to You-Know-Who. Don't think I forgot that. You know, to me it seems there are dozens of candidates out there - even Vykélari - who are more suitable for Harry than you, especially when it comes to looking after his safety. At least most of them didn't try to kill him! Merlin! You've got some nerves..."

Ron could immediately see that he had hit a mark with that comment. He was starting to unsettle the both of them and predictably, Zabini came to his lover's, no his fiancé's defence, just as he had done in the hospital. "Harry forgave Draco, so it isn't for you to judge..."

Ron's eyes blazed. "Damn well, Harry forgave him; that's just what he always does. Forgiving people who don't deserve it... Therefore someone needs to see to it that he isn't exploited anymore."

"I won't exploit him!"

Zabini straightened his posture worriedly, trying to mediate in a situation that was obviously starting to spin out of control. "We won't force him to mate and we will return with him to Hogwarts for the new term, even if we may not be bonded by then, you have our word."

Choosing to ignore the dark skinned Italian, Ron brought the mirror closer to his face, staring at Malfoy threateningly. "Do you remember our fourth year? When you made those 'Potter stinks' badges?"

"Yesss." Malfoy hissed through clenched teeth, eyes narrow and cold.

"Yeah. Do you also remember me breaking your nose for it?" Ron asked "No?" He chuckled bitterly.  
"No, because I didn't. I didn't even speak with him, I stood idly by when he was pranked and humiliated, accused him of having willingly entered the bloody Tournament because he wanted the attention. As if Harry ever wanted attention! When I finally gathered my wits again and came back to him without so much as a 'sorry', he forgave me, just like that and he never spoke of it again."

Ron halted for a moment, Merlin, he hadn't meant to tell them of this black page in the history of Harry's and his friendship, but when Zabini had spoken of Harry's forgiveness as if it excused everything Malfoy had done in the past...

It didn't.

And Ron decided to thrust the dagger a little deeper. He needed to drive the point home that there was someone watching over Harry, someone who wouldn't stand by idly as a friend was taken advantage of and mistreated.

"It wasn't even the worst betrayal he had to experience. Last year I abandoned Harry and Hermione in the wilds to fend for themselves, searching for a way to fight the madman you all so readily followed. And you know what? Once I found them again, he forgave me almost as readily. It's just what he does. But I won't allow that habit to destroy his life."

"It won't." Malfoy assured, careful to keep eye-contact with Ron. "I assure you that neither of us has any intention of hurting Harry, in any way."

"Yeah?" Ron took out his wand and charmed the mirror to float right in front of him. "Well, I don't care much for your promises, Malfoy. And I don't know you, Zabini so the same goes for you."

With sure movements he brought the tip of his wand to his bare, left forearm. "But I promise you that if you should betray Harry's trust for selfish reasons, or hurt him deliberately through any action of yours, I will spare neither trouble nor expense to ensure that you are given your due."  
Then, with three quick, wordless cutting charms he painted a red, bloody arrow into his pale, freckled skin, the tip pointing up towards the crook of his arm. "This I promise" he spoke the three words clearly, one for each cut. For a moment nothing happened, then more blood welled forth to pool around the wound, but not falling from his arm. It surrounded the angrily red arrow, framing it, swirling and glowing faintly with golden magic, pulsing with the strong beat of his heart, once, twice, and then a third time, before pulling back into the wound which shrivelled up and curled back into itself until nothing was left but smooth, pale skin.

In the ensuing silence Ron almost heard his heart echoing in his throat. He knew that both purebloods would recognize the rune he had used, and also the ritual. If he should break the promise made with the Tiwaz rune, the arrow would break open again and turn its direction, doubling back on itself. The wound would not stop bleeding again until some atonement was made; it wouldn't bleed much, not enough to become dangerous in any case, but it would seep through every piece of clothing of whatever fabric one might wear and thus inform everyone of the bearer's status as an oath-breaker.  
It was not as drastic as an unbreakable vow and not as dramatic, but certainly effective enough. Who would ever willingly deal with or employ an oath-breaker?

Now Zabini and Malfoy had to take him seriously, now they had to call their own behaviour into question and wonder if they would get away with the usual treatment of submissives.

That was all Ron wanted. Probably all he could do for his friend at this moment.

With deliberate slowness, both Zabini and Malfoy stood from their chairs and stepped closer to the mirror. It might have been more intimidating if said mirror had been larger than Lockhart's trashy novels.  
Still, at least it meant that he had gotten through to them.

"You are aware, Weasley, that any interference of a wizard in matters of Vykélari courtships is strictly forbidden," Malfoy started in a deadly tone, "And you know," Zabini continued with a voice just as cold and piercing, "that we could have you imprisoned for that vow alone."

Ron's heart beat quicker but he refused to back down now; he would have to lie if he said that he wasn't nervous. Yes, he had known that he was doing something illegal, something that might cause him a world of problems, and so he had also deliberately done it in a way that would not allow him a retreat: he could not withdraw from a magical promise like the one he had just made, just like one couldn't back out of an Unbreakable Vow.

But the two Slytherin's would be dearly sorry if they actually went so far as to accuse him openly. Ron had been careful to word his promise in such a way that it had nothing to do with courting or marriage, just with the betrayal of trust - whatever they were to Harry when committing it.  
He didn't point that out though, it was always good to be underestimated by ones' enemies.

"But we won't." Malfoy said insistently. "That should tell you something, Weasley. Instead, in answer to your promise, I in turn vow that I will not force Harry to mate. I can't promise to never go against his wishes or force him to do something he might not like, because sometimes certain situations might force our hands, especially with someone as eager to endanger himself as Harry is. But I promise to try and do right by him to the best of my ability."  
Then Malfoy let his wand fall into his palm with a smooth, sliding gesture and cut the upright arrow into his forearm. "This I promise."

"I will make the same vow." Zabini said and then repeated Malfoy's words before carving the Tiwaz into his own flesh.

Ron had observed all of this with no little amount of surprise. He had only meant to intimidate the two Slytherins somewhat, to make sure they would think twice before mistreating his friend. He had never expected them to be so reasonable let alone so accommodating. Of course, Ron would still be wary - who wouldn't after everything that had happened only two months ago, especially since the promise they had made still granted them a lot of leeway - but at least it was _something_. At least, while there, Harry wouldn't be forced into a mating.

"Now, Weasley: I will close the connection and bring the mirror to Harry. He'll be keeping it so you can stay in contact. And you should probably go and get Granger, Harry wanted to speak with the two of you."

"I trust you will be responsible-minded about what advice you give Harry." Zabini added almost as an afterthought that had just come to his mind.

"I always am."

"Fine. Then give Granger our regards and... we will come and get Harry in about two hours."

Ron nodded his consent and a wink of Zabini's wand later, the mirror only showed Ron's reflection, pale and tired and grim. For a moment, Ron frowned at his appearance, he looked almost like a stranger and yet ... so similar to the time he had spent at Bill's and Fleur's, and barely been able to sleep at all.

Merlin... the past was such a shrewd thing. Staring into its eyes could lead to both elation and grief and one was well-advised not to confront it recklessly or unprepared, because its rusty weapons were still sharp.  
Sometimes, Ron thought, it might have been easier for his conscience if Harry hadn't forgiven him so casually, hadn't acted as if it wasn't a huge matter for his best friend to betray him.  
And sometimes, he thought it might have been easier to bear if Harry had forgiven him because Ron was his best friend. But Harry had also forgiven Draco Malfoy even though he had almost killed Katie and Ron and Dumbledore, even though he had let Death Eaters into the school, tried to hand Harry over and bullied them for years. Harry just forgave.

And that was why Ron needed to have an eye on Harry, because Harry really was naive like that.

Shaking the gloomy thoughts from his mind, Ron slowly made his way back into the Burrow and the kitchen, the mirror clutched in his hand.

Hermione and his mother both looked up from where they sat close together at the table that was still covered with various documents and books. But in front of them, right above the copies of Hermione's precious texts of law, laid a copy of the Daily Prophet that must have arrived while Ron had been outside.  
Ron frowned and warily shuffled into the room once he saw the devilishly elated smirk that widened his girlfriend's lips and flashed in her brown, large eyes. Honestly, she could be quite scary like that, he never knew if he wanted to warn the poor guy who would soon find his balls ripped off by the sweetest and deadliest girl to ever hold a wand or if he should just safe himself.

"Wonderful news..." Hermione grinned at him over the newspaper.

"Yeah?" Ron raised the mirror in front of him, almost like a protective shield. "Mine are not too bad as well..."

* * *

  
Blaise and Draco shooed Harry immediately into the bathroom once he had let them in that morning, telling him to hurry and get ready while they prepared his surprise and although Harry rather suspected that it had something to do with seeing his friends – after all Blaise had promised that he could speak with Ron and Hermione today – he was just a bit glad to be able to escape being alone with the two dominants for a bit longer, at least until later today, when they would take him out on a date and he would have to concentrate on evaluating his feelings and the swirls of his magic the entire time they were together.

Yes, a date. Outside of the manor. Which might have been seen as the epitome of hypocrisy, after all the warnings he had received over the last few days, and certainly Harry had been sceptical enough, but the two Slytherins were serious.

They had asked him yesterday after leaving him two hours alone with Ives. Not that Harry had minded, the other submissive certainly was a wonderful conversationalist and he had had the chance to talk to him about their newest magical problems. In detail. Unfortunately Ives could do little more than caution him that controlling his magic would be much more difficult for as long as he wasn't mated and had he admitted to not having much experience in the matter, since he had had no chance to learn anything at all prior to his mating. Ives hadn't been able to afford drawing attention to himself by asking an adult Vykélari for advice and had opted to block the major part of his magic instead.

And then almost two hours after Harry had left Blaise behind in that corridor alone, the two dominants had come to his rooms, both with wet hair and bruised lips, and he thought Blaise had limped a bit but he might just have imagined that. Draco's usually white skin had been a healthy rose and not as unblemished as it had been only two hours before, but even Blaise's dark skin had been quite obviously marked not only with hickeys, but with actual bite marks, angry bite marks displayed prominently on slender necks, suffused with blood. In short, they looked as if they had just shagged each other within an inch of their lives and then tried to hastily wash up afterwards; with the current hot weather, there simply didn't exist any appropriate clothing that would also have hidden the more obvious signs of their activities and so they had obviously not even tried. Or had they deliberately wanted him to see them?

In any case, Harry had stared at those marks with guilty fascination, unable to tear his eyes away; but fortunately for him the two dominants had quite politely ignored Harry's gazes – aside from the occasional, knowing smirk – and Draco asked him to sit down with a flourish towards the settee.

Draco had then proceeded to let himself plop down right next to Harry, sitting there casually, one leg bent beneath his body, his arm propped up on the backrest of the settee.  
"Blaise told me what he did..." Draco had said after some moments in a rare show of straight-forwardness and Harry had barely refrained from groaning, suddenly having a rather good – and rather mortifying – idea of what might have happened. So Blaise had told his fiancé that he had kissed another man, which had lead to the two of them screwing each other passionately, madly (and probably silly) for who knew how long? At least it explained why they both had come fresh from a shower. Wonderful. Now Harry also made them behave irrationally when he wasn't even there...  
Even though... that was kind of a hot image. _Irrationally_ hot.

"... I didn't mean to corner you so." Blaise continued, making Harry force himself to pay attention again. "But I know now what you meant when you said I was not thinking clearly. But the influence was just so subtle, I didn't really notice it at all."

Harry gave him a tiny smile. He was still a little bit irritated that the Italian had kissed him even after being aware of the magical control Harry had fought with, but he couldn't just reject an honest apology and after all, he had felt himself how hard to resist they were, those persuasive whispers of one's magic that made you completely ignore reason.  
"Don't worry. We'll find a solution somehow." He ended lamely, glancing at Blaise as he echoed the words the Italian had used as a reassurance earlier.

Draco grinned at the both of them, his pale eyes gleaming again with that half mischievous, half sardonic spark. "Yes, we will. But actually that idea with the portkey is quite ingenious. I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier. You know, we could use it to go out a bit. We could glamour ourselves and actually leave the Manor..."

"And if something happened, you could just use the portkey and be safe; Draco and I can just apparate back here and then get you."

"I'd still advise staying here in Italy for a while until we do have a better grip on our magic, since none of us have celebrity status here and we will be relatively undisturbed, but at least we wouldn't be tethered to the manor any more like prisoners. And even after we return to Hogwarts you'll have a safe retreat."

That caught Harry's attention."You want to go back to Hogwarts?"  
For a moment he had wanted to ask further, but he actively fought his suspicion down. He didn't want to question their every behaviour. So what if they had been non-committal about the exact date at which they'd let Harry return home? They might have had their reasons. After all the start of the new term was still over one and a half months away and they might have thought that Harry would only be put off by such a long time span. Maybe they hadn't really noticed that it had just caused Harry to believe that they would never let him go.  
At least that was what he wanted to believe.

So he let it be when Draco cocked his head and smiled at him as if he didn't quite understand what Harry was asking exactly. "Of course... Blaise and I haven't had our final exams and to be honest, the last year was rather... well, I don't think it would be a good idea to try and do the exams now. And you need to finish your education as well, or didn't you want to return to Hogwarts?"

"No, no. I wanted to return. I was just not sure if you would."

"Okay, since that is settled..." Draco said, lowering his eyes a little bit but Harry could still see him watching him, and suddenly he had the feeling that Draco wanted to disassemble him, take him apart and study each component of him separately until Harry was totally bare, reconnoitred. And then the white Nundu sitting there so causally might just devour him at last. It was a peculiar feeling, especially because Harry knew how very uncomfortable Draco would be if he was to be unpicked like that in turn.  
But in contrast to Draco, Harry was sure that the bond couldn't do that, it could make them understand each other better, could bring them closer, but it would never bare everything, every human being was just too complex to be ever understood completely and become totally predictable.

For as long as Harry himself and not his magic, was in control of his body and thoughts, Draco would never decipher him.

"Will you allow us to take you on a date?"

Harry gaped as he was ripped from his thoughts so suddenly. "What?"

A lazy grin spread over Draco's face. "I asked, mon doux rossignol, if you'd go on a date with us," he repeated after a moment, reaching out to run his hands down Harry's face but he checked himself in time, letting it fall into his lap. He didn't seem embarrassed or disappointed, though, and with the way his grey eyes held Harry's, the Gryffindor couldn't help but wonder if it had been a deliberate gesture, to show Harry that they did respect his wishes.

Before he could come to a decision, Draco tilted his head, a wide smirk tearing at his lips, "Mon petit, pauvre, très doux verdier. Et si embrouillé…"

"You know…" Harry rolled his eyes once and tightened his lips in fake irritation, "the only reason I don't ask you what the hell you are mumbling, is because I really know it would piss me off."

That had earned him nothing but more amusement from both Draco and Blaise and an Italian translation of Draco's words, which hadn't helped him either. But, well, in the end he had readily agreed to the date – and why not? It would be nice to leave the manor. And for the evening he'd been left in peace so that his two dominants could prepare.

But now, while standing in the shower under the relaxing spray of hot water that seemed to massage his back and neck when he tilted it just so, Harry wondered if it was a good idea to go on an official date with the Slytherins. Not that he wouldn't like seeing something else than Lanai Manor, as beautiful as it was, but he would constantly have to stay alert that they didn't get too close to each other, something that was bound to happen on a date...

And all the while those images and sensations popped up in front of his mind's eye like flashes of a dream.

God! Those bite marks ... how strong did one have to bite to leave such bruising? And those swollen lips, red from being engaged so fiercely in a passionate battle of teeth and tongues and lips. Suckling, caressing, enticing and teasing each other and hot, mingling breath. It didn't help that Harry knew how good Blaise's lips could taste and that they felt even better when moving on his own and on the skin of his jaw line and neck.

Slowly Harry's hand inched over his stomach, fingertips reaching forward, through dark curls and over sensitive skin and along the already half-hard length nestled there. Had Blaise touched Draco just like he had him? He wondered, while pressing a fingertip to the weeping slit on his erection. Probably not, the Italian had been so gentle with Harry, kissing him with insistent but also warm and soft lips, holding him close... Harry bit his lower lip, remembering with a cruel clarity those strong hands that had ghosted over his sides so softly, a touch barely felt at all, making his muscle's strain and stretch in wicked delight as if those finger tips set his flesh aflame wherever they touched him. A trail of burning desire.  
A low moan escaped his lips as he curled his hand around the stiffening length of his arousal.

God, was it bad that he didn't want that to have been only his magic making him hunger for the other Vykélari's touch? But to never feel this level of overwhelming pleasure again, being held and wanted... Magic or not, he had never felt anything even coming close to that experience. And it had just been a bloody kiss!

And yet, he didn't want to just be desired on the basis of some obscure instinct alone.

Harry's hand slowed. But what if it was just like that? Neither Blaise nor Draco had ever shown any interest in him before... Ginny had had a crush on The Boy Who Lived since like forever, before she had even known him, and Cho... Cho had had a strong affinity for celebrities.

What if, in the end, it all came down to him being the Boy-Who-Lived-And-Became-A-Magical-Prodigy?

With a sigh, Harry's shoulders slumped in resignation and he closed his eyes and reached out for the tap, turning off the warm water. He flinched at the sudden shock of the liquid ice pattering down on him, each drop feeling like the sharp pinch of a needle.  
God, this was killing him...

 

Ten minutes later, Harry left the bathroom, his skin still a little bit red from the cold water and the vigorousness with which he had towelled himself down, only to stop in his steps at hearing the welcome sound of Hermione pestering Blaise and Draco as to where on earth they had hidden him.

"He's taking a shower, Granger, he'll be here in a minute..." He heard Draco's cool voice answer.

Immediately, Harry felt the tenseness seeping out of his body as he hastened over to where Blaise and Draco stood right in front of what seemed to be a magical window, embedded into the wand opposite to the real windows of his living area. The living room suite had been rearranged to allow someone to sit right in front of the new decoration, which, Harry was elated to see, showed Fred and George's old room, the piles and stacks of their products filling the entire background of the scene while several chairs had been situated in a half-circle right in front of the mirror.  
Hermione and Ron each occupied one chair, both of them looking tired and worn. But their expressions brightened immediately upon seeing Harry and a cacophony of greetings broke loose.

Harry rushed over, grinning madly as he pressed his hands against the glass, the gesture mirrored on the other side by Ron and Mione.

"Well, and here he is" Draco announced quite unnecessarily, "not even having combed his hair. You're hopeless Harry..."

Harry completely ignored him. "I missed you ... how are you?"

Hermione emitted a strange mixture between a sob and a laugh, looking as if she wanted to smack him.  
"It's not us you should worry about, mate." Ron shook his head.

"Harry, are you well?"

"I'm fine, Mione." he quickly reassured, giving his friend a wide grin. God, it felt good to see the two persons again with whom he shared most of his best memories... and a huge part of the worst.

"Harry," Blaise interrupted gently from behind, waiting until the Gryffindor had turned and looked at him.  
For a moment, the brunet was taken aback at how cold the Italian seemed, how detached and haughty and a quick glance in Draco's direction showed that he, too, had become the reserved, snobbish pureblood heir again; both of their faces showed not a hint of real emotion, looking as if carved from marble. It was only in that moment that Harry realised just how much they had allowed him to see during the last few days, only in this moment with literal strangers practically sitting in Harry's room and with their masks in place once more. The suddenness of it caught him unaware.

"We'll leave you alone, now. And don't worry about the mirrors: you can keep this one here in your room if you like and we arranged for its counterpart to stay with your friends for as long as you are here in Lanai Manor, so you will always be able to contact each other. They are two-way-mirrors, that is..."

"I know what that is." Harry disrupted quietly, watching as Blaise's eyebrows drew together for the fraction of a second before he nodded. "Then we'll just get you in about two hours? I'll have an elf send breakfast up for you."

With a noticeable straightening of his posture, the Zabini heir then turned to the mirror. "Granger, Weasley."  
Draco as well, gave a curt nod towards the pair that had been his enemies once, then both of them turned to leave.

"See you later," Harry called out to them, catching the barest hint of a smirk as Blaise closed the door after them. He was oddly relieved that they had kept their promise, not that he had really doubted them since their temporary bond the day before. But still, two days for establishing such a connection from Britain to Italy couldn't have been an easy feat, not with two wizarding ministries involved and no friend locally in Britain who would have had a personal interest in helping; at least Harry couldn't imagine that the Malfoys or Zabinis would gladly commit themselves to assisting Harry to speak with bloodtraitors and 'mudbloods'. Something could have gone wrong, something even out of Draco's and Blaise's range of influence and caused them to fall short of their pledge. Harry might not even have believed them in such a case.  
Therefore it was as much a relief to not have to distrust the two Slytherins for not keeping their promise to him as it was to see Ron and Hermione again.

And then to make it so that Harry could converse with them whenever he wished, even though their promise had only involved one single conversation... Harry would have to thank them later.

"Are they gone?"

He couldn't help it, Harry had to laugh at Ron's wary question. "Yes, they are."

Relieved at finally being able to speak in private with their missing friend, Ron and Hermione leaned forwards.  
"Harry, how are you, really?" The bushy haired brunette asked, the tightness in her voice betraying her anxiousness.

"I'm fine, honestly. We've had a somewhat rough start, but ... I'm fine now." He hesitated for a moment, but the question needed to be asked. "How is Ginny?"

"Crying her eyes out. She hates coming down because she thinks everyone is pitying her. When she does she gets all defensive and snappy. You know, I think she just needs to hate someone right now."

Harry sighed. "And that is me?" he guessed, his stomach clenching tightly. He hadn't thought that Ginny would take this so badly. And it was with a guilty conscience that Harry realised that during the last few days and all his struggles he had never fought to be with Ginny again. He had been afraid of being a creature, of losing control over his life and his freedom and of endangering his friends and any future life partner he might chose for himself if he ignored his status as a Vykélari submissive. He was angry that this unwelcome inheritance was messing up his life, taking away his rights and making people expect him to submit himself to the next best dominant like a good, sweet submissive. He was angry that he wasn't seen as an equal any longer and that he couldn't go back to his friends – to which he counted Ginny. But he hadn't bemoaned the fact that he couldn't be with Ginny any longer. To hear now that his former girlfriend had obviously taken their nonexistent relationship (after all they hadn't gotten back together after the war) much more seriously, had given him so much more feelings and thoughts than he had returned made his stomach churn. It wasn't fair to her...

"No, she doesn't hate you mate. Just your bad luck. And at the moment she demonizes Zabini and Malfoy..." Ron smiled sadly at him. "Mum is with her right now. She'll get over it eventually. To be honest, it never sat quite right with me that she had loved you before she even knew what love was. I don't know. But mate, she's not the point now. How are you, really? And don't tell me 'fine'. You scared us half to death, mate, you know, we thought someone had cursed you and that you were dying. Harry, you just didn't stop screaming..."

A little bit uncomfortable, Harry started jiggling with his legs again. He hadn't really thought about how his transformation might have affected those who had seen it, too busy with his own rather traumatic experience and everything that had gone on since then. But Harry remembered just too well how terrible it had been in Malfoy Manor when he had had to listen to Hermione's screams and then he hadn't even seen the torture. How bad it must have been for the Weasleys to see him writhing in pain, unable to help.  
"I'm sorry." He mumbled, the wiggling of his leg quickening a notch.

Ron sighed. "I swear, Harry, if you start apologising now for what happened, submissive Vykélari will become extinct once more. I just want to honestly know if you are alright."

"I am. All my senses returned and I only had a bad case of magical exhaustion afterwards but Draco and Blaise said that was normal."

"It is" Hermione said, biting her lips and observing him carefully. "And otherwise, Harry? How are Malfoy and Zabini treating you? Did they ... Harry did they force you to do anything?"

"What? No!" Harry exclaimed, then halted and said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice "well, they forced me to stay here... but nothing more. It was ... difficult at the beginning. But we came to an arrangement. They are tutoring me and helping me with ... all of this and we will be returning in time for the next school term. So you really don't need to worry about me. And..." He nervously scratched the back of his head "if you should get a letter from me, please ignore it. Uhm... just ... destroy it. I wrote it in a fit of rage the day before yesterday."

"Harry, what is in that letter?" Ron asked suddenly, his voice calm and demanding, wondering if this might bring him closer to learn if and why Harry might have wanted to ignore what was happening to him.

"Nothing!" Harry said a little bit tartly, then sighed, wondering why he felt so reluctant to tell them of his arguments and difficulties with the two other Vykélari that he had had at first. They were his best friends after all, he had shared with them experiences he would never have with Ginny, even though he had wanted to love her at some point.

"Harry, please!" Hermione begged, slipping forward onto the very edge of her chair.

With a sigh, Harry relented and proceeded to tell his friends of all that had happened between him, Blaise and Draco since the moment they had come to the hospital and guided him through the transformation, though he withheld how both Blaise and Draco seemed to constantly be driven to establish some form of physical or even magical contact between them, how Blaise had kissed him and how Harry felt himself respond with both his body and magic, and maybe some part of his mind. And he told them of Adler and Ives, even though Ron claimed to never have heard the names.

Both of his friends immediately understood how dangerous the letter could prove to be and promised to notify Harry at once when it reached them. Hermione especially was rather upset that "you didn't think about it being possibly intercepted, did you?! God, Harry, don't you remember how careful we had to be with the owl post both with Sirius and during the war?"

"I was desperate!" Harry exclaimed defensively. "They effectively imprisoned me with House Elves as guards and they humiliated me and ... Mione, they ... they more or less told me that they would have the right to rape me and that that was exactly what would happen to me if I managed to flee from the manor. I didn't even believe them; but... but it's true, isn't it? I really have no rights, legally, in all of this." He asked, already knowing the answer.

Hermione and Ron exchanged a meaningful gaze, making Harry frown.  
"Well, to put it in a nutshell, no, you haven't." Ron said but Hermione leaned forwards even more, her eyebrows practically invisible beneath her bushy hair.

"But it doesn't have to stay that way. This morning the Daily Prophet has actually printed a very good article." Hermione bit her lips to suppress her excited grin. "I think I have a new favourite journalist, you know? Wait, I have it here, I'll read it to you."

Quickly, she picked up an already rather crinkled version of today's newspaper from one of the boxes behind her and spread it out before her.

" **VYKÉLARI SUBMISSIVE FLEDGED: HARRY POTTER ABDUCTED FROM ST. MUNGO'S**  
By Sonia Crane

Last Thursday, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries became the scene of the dramatic reactivation of a submissive Vykélari line, an event last documented in 1493. The submissive in question is none other than Harry James Potter, 17, our very own, much-loved and respected Boy-Who-Lived and recent war-hero who killed You-Know-Who in the Battle of Hogwarts, thereby ending the official fighting of the Second Wizarding War.

Mr Potter was apparently taken to the hospital around 08.40 pm, with suspected curse damage, upon which he was treated and tested by the leading healers of St. Mungo's. An internal source preferring to stay anonymous confirmed that every specialist currently off-duty was called back to the hospital post-haste. "Mr Potter's magic had completely isolated itself, drawing back into his core. As far as we could tell, he could neither see, hear nor feel anything, though Mrs Molly Weasley, who amongst others had brought Mr Potter in, said that he had screamed in pain for minutes when it all began and had also shown signs of shock. He showed green markings on his forehead, cheekbones and his sides and during his short stay he grew poisonous claws and a pair of equally green wings, as large as a grown hippogryph's."

"Those are storybook symptoms of a submissive Vykélari transformation," confirmed Jennifer Palmer, renowned historian and scion of the Brown family, who specialized on the history of pureblood families in Britain, France and Germany. But since there are several differences in the appearance and powers of submissive and dominant Vykélari, and submissives were thought to be extinct, the Healers remained with their first diagnosis. "I suppose they were understandably hesitant to go to the responsible authority" admitted Mrs Palmer, a justified guess since all Vykélari related matters are to be put forth to the head of the Vykélari community, who until this day is none other than Lucius Malfoy, known Death Eater whose trial is still expected at Monday, the 27th of July. "Just imagine it! The Boy-Who-Lived in the hands of a former Death Eater..."

When even after four hours, the diagnosis could not be verified and Mr Potter's condition worsened dramatically, the Healers had no other choice but to contact Mr Malfoy. According to our source, Mr Malfoy's son Draco, and his fiancé Blaise Zabini were lead towards Mr Potter's room shortly after that conversation and entered alone, refusing to be accompanied by the Healer in charge, Andrew Cowen. "Half an hour later, they ordered the hospital staff to send Mr Potter's friends away so that they could leave undisturbed, with an unconscious Harry Potter."

Following the incident, the administration of St. Mungo's Hospital immediately informed their staff of the situation and the Vykélari law enforced secrecy they were to maintain. "But I couldn't," our source confesses. "I still think the Healers did right when contacting Mr Malfoy because Mr Potter would have died without an adult Vykélari to guide him through his inheritance. But after everything Mr Potter did for every one of us, we can't stand by idly while he is abducted, forced into a relationship with two other men and then oppressed for the rest of his life. That is nothing less than rape and deprivation of liberty! And the hospital administration even refused to inform Mr Potter's friends who had brought him in [...] I see it as my duty to call people's attention to this before it is too late. Those laws need to be changed now! If I am found out and sent to prison, at least I'll know that I did the right thing. Purebloods can't keep on trampling over the rights of everyone else just because their families forged the laws and political structures our society is build up on now to their advantage."

Grave accusations that might sadly become reality all too soon according to Mrs Palmer, who despite being female and being born into a family that hadn't brought forth Vykélari in centuries, has gathered a vast amount of information on Vykélari over the years, as a major, formative influence on today's pureblood society.  
But in the opinion of Mrs Palmer, the situation should not be used, to put purebloods into the pillory.  
"You must understand that those laws are very old and one always must interpret those things with the respective societal background. Most traditions and believes of pureblood families and the wizarding community in Britain evolved in a time when the ministry itself had little influence on the everyday life of wizards and it was preferred that the heads of families resolved most issues within the privacy of the family. The same was done with most institutions. We actually still see those dynamics in today's society," Mrs Palmer said before elaborating that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry itself has been completely self-governed until Fudge's last year as a minister. "Even crimes happening there were handled by the school itself as long as they seemed competent enough to do so. Vykélari enjoy the same autonomy when dealing with matters of courtship, family law, marriage law and inheritance law as well as deliberate interferences of wizards therein. It is inherently nothing unusual."

To the interjection that the ministry didn't allow other institutions the oppression of a minority group and neither did they condone actions that otherwise were illegal, Mrs Palmer stated that the ministry did not do these things with Vykélari either. "But without complaint there is no redress and no submissive would ever accuse his husband, his bond-mate on whose physical closeness the stability of his magic depends, especially not since any complaint would have to be lodged with the Vykélari council which consists of dominants only. And before a mating and any atrocity that might be committed during it, every opportunity of filing a complaint is moribund since submissives are strictly isolated during that time."

"So, if no one stepped forward, what would happen to Mr Potter?" This reporter asked.

"Well, I of course do not know the dominants in question," Mrs Palmer added for consideration, "and since well over two centuries have passed since the last Vykélari mating, and the society nowadays is much more liberal than it was during that time, this is more something of a worst-case scenario; but generally Mr Potter would be expected to submit himself to a mating without much resistance. He would need to establish the bond himself and share his magic over it. In time, a dominant would expect him to give birth to at least one dominant, male heir to continue the family name. His husband or – as it might turn out in this case – husbands could forbid him to associate with certain groups or individuals that they found to be dangerous and thereby dictate him his circle of friends and they could give certain limits to his job choices as well, even going so far as to forbid him to work at all.  
What might happen if he refuses the mating, I do not know. Vykélari are very secretive about that. But I am certain that Mr Potter himself will not be harmed, it seems that such an act would make a mating impossible. But there have been reports of dominants threatening a submissive's friends or family members in order to enforce his compliance."

Certainly a life unworthy of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. After all the sacrifices he made in order to help the Wizarding World, what will the Wizarding World do to save its saviour? What will the ministry do in order to bring back the one who stood up and fought those the ministry bowed to?  
The next days will show if the minister is going to account for the debts of his institution and our society towards a 17 years old boy we forced into the role of saviour.

For an excerpt on Jennifer Palmer's as of yet unpublished book 'On the Purity of Magic' that is giving an interesting insight into the Vykélari, see page 5."

Hermione's voice fell silent and she looked up to her friend in the mirror excitedly but Harry didn't encounter her gaze, too shocked to really think of anything to say.

"This is so clever, Harry. She didn't even come here to interview anyone, knowing that we would become liable to prosecution if we even admitted that you were a submissive Vykélari. The Mediwizard she interviewed remained anonymous and I doubt that his colleagues would rat him out, not after the way this article will influence the public. And that historian does not really know if you are a Vykélari or not, her information is given only hypothetically and on hearsay. So the only one that Crane woman endangered is herself and after making you the tragic hero, the public would become a lynch mob if Lucius Malfoy tried to turn her in. As it is, I don't think he'll be acquitted in his trial after all. His reputation won't recover in time and now every pair of eyes will be directed towards the Wizengamot. They just cannot afford to let him off easily now... this changes everything, Harry!"

Appalled, Harry shook his head. "No... that can't be."

"Harry, you know he des..."

"Don't start with that now, Ron. If Lucius Malfoy is convicted, I want him to be punished for his crimes and not because the wizarding public wants to see heads rolling. And this is... now everyone is going to think Blaise and Draco are abusing me... what did that guy say? Rape and deprivation of liberty? They aren't doing anything to me!"

Ron leaned forward in his chair. "But they are holding you captive."

"No! ... Well, at first yes, but it was for my protection also and we have come to an arrangement and they are helping me..."

"Harry," Hermione began in a tone of voice that clearly said she meant business, "do you know how that sounds? It sounds like a case of Stockholm Syndrome – that's a muggle term." She added when Ron looked at her questioningly.

"I'm not in love with them!"

Hermione moved her chair closer to the mirror. "Stockholm Syndrome is not about love, Harry." Then she said with a glance towards her boyfriend "Muggle scientists found out that one out of four hostages develop generally positive feelings, empathy and sympathy towards their kidnappers, because they mistake a lack of abuse as an act of kindness while feeling left alone by everyone else, especially when the kidnapping stretches over many days."

"I'm not suffering from Stockhom Syndrome, Mione! I don't feel abandoned and I certainly don't confuse kindness with a 'lack of abuse'. But this will destroy the names Malfoy and Zabini even though they didn't even do anything illegal! Yes, they were assholes at the beginning, but they have changed. And did you know that they never intended to force me to mate, even before they came to guide my transformation?"

Calmly Hermione raised her flat hands in a pacifying manner. "Harry, all I want is that you are aware of the problem and that you think honestly on whether or not it is right what you are feeling towards them, whatever that is."

"I think she is right, mate. As always" Ron grinned sheepishly before turning serious again. "You know, it's a little bit disturbing that you are so readily defending them right now when two days ago, you wrote a letter to us asking for help and, well, probably complaining about the treatment you received if I understood you correctly. Just hold out for a bit. Now that the situation with you is in the open, we can actively do something against those laws. If we play this article right, Harry, those laws might be repealed in a special meeting of the Wizengamot within a few days."

Harry shook his head. "I can't do that. It is wrong, Ron. I can't allow them to demonize Blaise and Draco just so that my life's a little bit easier again. They did nothing wrong. The letter was just a crackpot idea, made because I was angry and thought I'd been kidnapped. I just wanted to get Blaise and Draco back for their behaviour the day before and I honestly didn't believe them. I mean the whole thing sounds completely crazy... Hermione, you need to contact this journalist, this Crane, for me and arrange for her to meet me via this mirror. She can have an exclusive interview but under the same conditions as Rita Skeeter that one time. Please, Hermione!"

The brunette sat back on her chair with a heavy sigh, obviously unhappy about the request. But Harry was confident that she would give in, because ultimately Hermione was also of the opinion that it was cowardly to allow others to be hurt, just because it made one's own life easier.  
"Fine, then. I'll ask her but maybe she won't agree, Harry. You have to understand that she obviously put herself in danger in order to get this article printed. The only thing standing between her and a charge from Malfoy is your image as the tragic hero in need of saving."

Harry huffed in annoyance, glaring at Ron's suppressed grin. A 'tragic hero in need of saving'? that was just ridiculous...  
But nonetheless he couldn't help but wonder if Hermione was right and Crane would refuse to publish Harry's statement. And did he even have the right to ask this favour of her, when she had ventured so much for him and she might end up in prison for it?

And yet... could Blaise and Draco deal with the public's condemnation? Would they prefer their family's reputation over Harry and finally make him leave, sending him back to Britain with this amount of untrained, wild magic? At least he might be safer from other dominants now, who would have to fear the same ostracism for touching the sacrosanct, untouchable Boy-Who-Lived.  
But the fact remained, that Harry didn't want to leave yet...  



	19. And When He Falleth

Blaise still smirked as he closed the door behind himself and his fiancé. "Merlin, I have half a mind to go back in there and ravish him right in front of his friends."

With an exasperated eye-roll, Draco turned and started to walk away to the conference room, leaving it to the dark skinned Italian to follow him; they had a meeting scheduled with their parents after all and practically no time to lose, having lost so much with the Weasel. "You wouldn't, Blaise. You are many things, but an exhibitionist, you're not."

Laughing, Blaise fell into step with the blond. "Do I hear a bit of wistfulness?"

Draco sniffed. "I'm a Malfoy!"  
Whether that meant that a Malfoy would never willingly indulge in such behaviour or that he could not because it would harm the praised Malfoy reputation and (therefore) pride beyond repair, he didn't specify. But he didn't need to, either; Blaise knew that it was a bit of both ... but to an astoundingly large proportion the latter. It was always a source of amusement to him that his prim and proper fiancé, Draco Malfoy, pureblood heir of such an illustrious family, was just as much a pervert as everyone else, even though he usually pretended to be so superior and sovereign.

Maybe that was the reason he loved to make Draco become human once in a while, too, when they were just with each other. And yesterday it seemed he had discovered just the perfect way to do that.

Merlin, that fierce expression when he had met his Dragon right after Harry had left him standing alone in the corridor and he had told his blond lover that he had kissed another man, kissed their not so submissive submissive, thereby stealing the march on Draco... priceless. And that was saying a lot when one was as comfortably off as the heir to the wealth of the Zabini family and a good part of the Lanai fortune and additionally the fiancé of the sole Malfoy heir.

**FLASHBACK**

Quite unexpectedly they had met in that same corridor, Blaise just making to return to their rooms for a shower and Draco coming from his meeting with Adler to do Merlin-knows-what, still wearing a somewhat tense expression, the source of which the Italian had not yet known. Blaise could only speculate as to how he must have looked like to his fiancé as the blonde, with the sharpness of a Vykélari's enhanced sight, took in his mussed appearance, flushed cheeks and swollen lips.  
In any case, Draco had halted in his steps the moment he laid eyes upon him and for a few timeless seconds they had just stared at each other in expectant silence, like two predators about to throw themselves into a territorial fight and Blaise had had the sudden urge to spread his wings and screech a warning at the other dominant to retreat. That same need was reflected in the flexing of Draco's shoulders and the miniscule tightening of his eyes.

Of course he had known that it was wrong, that the dominant in front of him was not vying with him for the same submissive, but allying with him; and more than that, he had known that he loved this pale haired, pale eyed, pale skinned and pale winged Vykélari, that he never ever should want to see him leave, but on some unconscious level and for a single moment the magic induced high that played his instincts like a lover would a well-known body, rippled through his thoughts like a reverberating echo and made him want to be the sole mate of the one he had tasted just now.  
Then rationality won and lucidity flashed through him like a lightning bolt. Blaise's head twitched to the side, even if his gaze never wavered from Draco's beautiful, hawk-like expression. It was a barely perceptible movement, controlled before it could really be implemented, but it was enough to break the tension.

Draco's posture relaxed slightly, also sensing the shift in the atmosphere and he took a step forward towards his fiancé.

"I've kissed him." Blaise had said out of the blue, totally straight up and soberly, in answer to the unvoiced question in Draco's gaze, while he followed the other's movements with unblinking, desiring eyes. That pale, well-sculptured body that he had come to know so well and intimately.

Again Draco paused in his steps, his eyes widening just a fraction and his nostrils flaring ever so slightly, but he stayed silent nonetheless, and so Blaise elaborated, hunting for a reaction beyond the boundaries of Draco's tight control.  
"He was agitated because he thought you might want him gone from the manor since you didn't like the nature of the bond."

Draco tilted his head slowly and came closer again, his lips twitching in something that might have been a smirk but could just as well have been a snarl. And Blaise knew that his lover was irritated, with himself for having misjudged the situation and the effects of his behaviour on Harry, with the situation as a whole, with Blaise for kissing their young Vykélari submissive...  
"And you _comforted_ him?"

"More or less." Blaise answered, the corners of his lips curling upwards, thrilled by the sizzling tension in the air around them, not yet willing to interrupt and destroy whatever game they were playing by confessing what Harry had done behind their backs; not when Draco was so beautiful in front of him in that cold, steely, sharp way of his, moving steadily forwards like a white-furred nundu on a hunt; not when Blaise himself still felt an echo of Harry's lips, of his hands against his chest and his trousers were still uncomfortably tight.  
And well, since he didn't have to fight this dominant for their submissive and said submissive was neither here nor willing to help him release all the pent-up tension, he'd need another way.

And Draco was _sooo_ good in that.

"You should have seen him," he goaded further, "all wide-eyed and beautiful, those green feathers ruffling up his hair, soft like downs."  
Of course that wasn't everything there was to the story and Harry's nervousness and wariness, his vulnerability towards the influence of his own and Blaise's magic was like a menacing wraith hovering in the back of his mind, stinging his conscience. But it was a topic for later and easily pushed aside as Draco, with the grace of a dancer, or an experienced fighter perhaps, backed him against the corridor's wall, Blaise allowing himself to be lead.

"Tempting." Draco murmured, lips close to Blaise's, dark and pale eyes clashing, as he deliberately left the other wondering if the comment was meant for him or the image of their submissive that the Italian had conjured.

"You have _no_ idea..." Blaise murmured with a lazy smirk and an air of superiority fleetingly flashing over his expression, knowing it would tick the blonde off.

Fingers pressed against his throat then in retaliation, sharp, claw-like nails threatening the delicate skin; not enough to draw blood or to hamper his breathing, but enough to be felt a little bit more with every excited beat of his heart echoing through his carotid, every intake of breath. And this time there really was a snarl distorting Draco's lips. But Blaise didn't back away and didn't try to break the other dominant's hold on him, encountering the intense stare evenly, challengingly.

"Tell me!" Draco growled, leaning in to nuzzle the juncture between Blaise's neck and his shoulder, deft fingers pushing aside the soft fabric of his shirt, only for sharp teeth to graze the vulnerable, newly bared skin.

"Tell me how he tasted, how his magic felt like... _tell_ me!"

Hissing at a particularly vicious bite, Blaise let his head fall back against the wall and clenched his eyes shut, both from his lover's cruel teeth and hot lips pursuing the pulse beat at his throat and the kiss that he remembered all too well.

A breathy laugh broke from his lips. "I won't ever have a problem with my Patronus again, that's for – Ah!" Blaise cried out as Draco bit down too hard and drew blood and he viciously tugged at the soft, platinum strands in revenge.

"Fuck, Draco!"

But the blonde only pulled Blaise's hand out of his hair and pressed it above the Italian's head against the rough wallpaper.  
"I will!" he promised against the dark skin, his free hand fumbling with the button of Blaise's trousers, relishing in the almost, almost perfectly suppressed groan that action elicited from his quiet lover. Thirsty for more of that sweet sound, Draco yanked at the trousers, eager to get them down, get them off; that unpractical, damnable, blasted, totally useless barrier, those outrageously expensive tailor-made pants that at this very moment were nothing more than a tremendously annoying hindrance to him.

He might have reached for his wand to vanish them altogether, had Blaise not grabbed his collar and pulled him in for a harsh, forceful kiss, teeth clashing almost painfully against his as the Italian sought to take the control that up to this moment had almost solely lain in Draco's hands.  
But not this time.

Pretending to yield, the blonde let go of his darker fiancé, relaxing into his kiss, into his arms, waiting until the lips upon his gentled and moved with more finesse, nipping and suckling at his lower lip to get him to open, both his mouth and himself, to the sensual onslaught.

Draco could have blissfully contented himself with such a sweet surrender, but not after having seen his lover flaunt his most recent activities so brazenly. Draco didn't want to even think about what it might have cost them, what abyss Blaise's actions might have opened between them and Harry, the bridges over which Draco would have to build with much patience and care, especially after what Adler had just told him. It made him so fucking _angry_ ... and a bit vengeful, too.

And god dammit, he was jealous! Jealous of Blaise for having stolen what Draco had assumed would naturally be _his_ to take, if one of them would ever get close enough to the younger submissive so that Harry would consent to something as innocent as a kiss. Had he not told his Italian lover that very first afternoon here how he wanted to kiss him? Taste his magic and feel his lips, the lithe body trembling in his embrace...

Suppressing a growl, Draco waited for the right moment, when Blaise had released his collar and was sufficiently distracted, then he quickly grabbed his lover's wrist and twirled him around to press him face first against the wall, twisting his arm behind the Italian's strong back to the music of a sharp outcry of surprise and discomfort.

Within a moment he had yanked the offending trousers down sufficiently, baring lean hips, strong thighs, twitching muscles and oh so wonderfully, luxuriously smooth skin that just begged him for a more thorough exploration; but as soon as his fingers glided over the side of Blaise's leg upwards, the Italian started to struggle against his hold and Draco had to press his whole body flush against his lover's to keep him in his grip.

"Shhh" he hissed against the dark curls after a few minutes of inconclusive wriggling and struggling and he finally managed to sneak his free hand around his lover's waist and to his raging erection without him escaping. Blaise hissed and shuddered as the lean, warm fingers closed around his shaft, caressing the silken skin, then tightening their hold, slowly pumping him with firm, even strokes.  
"Stay still and I'll reward you, beloved..." He promised with a silken murmur, nuzzling the strong neck with half closed eyes. God, how he loved that scent; it made him want to _devour_ and he took his time to worship and seek out every sensitive point he knew of, licking, nibbling and kissing along his lover's neck until it wasn't enough anymore, neither for him nor for Blaise.

Gently, Draco bit down on the muscles and flesh at the juncture of Blaise's neck and shoulder as a last warning to stay in place before he moved back a bit and released his lover's arm, to unzip his own trousers and push down his briefs just enough to free his own engorged, swollen flesh, a low moan escaping his lips as the pressure from the unforgiving fabric eased.

For a moment he contemplated taking out his wand for a stretching and lubrication charm and just plunging into the tempting tightness in one firm push; but then again, Blaise had had enough of magical pleasure for one day... and sometimes it was more satisfying to use other, more pleasurably torturous means.

And he wanted to see the dark Italian come undone in his arms.

Moving forward again, Draco leaned against his lover, putting his free hands over the dark ones that fanned out over the wall, rubbing his erection teasingly against that crack where he'd bury himself soon, letting Blaise feel all of him.

"Did you touch him?" He asked in a low murmur, deceptively gently nibbling at the other young man's earlobe as he rocked against him, making him shudder and arch into his movements.  
"I know how your hands wander when you _kiss_..."

With a sudden shake of his head, Blaise freed his abused ear and flashed the blonde a nasty, burning look over his shoulder. "He broke away first."

Draco chuckled. It hadn't been a very long kiss then. Maybe it was petty, but he did feel a little bit assuaged at that and in a show of his approval he rewarded the dark skinned Italian by once again closing the fingers of his right hand around his lover's agonizingly swollen shaft, starting to stroke and tease the engorged, hot flesh in his hand, every once in a while pausing to caress the weeping tip with his thumb in slow circles, gathering the precome and spreading it over Blaise's erection as he did so.

"Feels good?" A low, amused whisper against a sensitive ear and predictably Blaise's eyes flashed in indignation and he reached back for his lover and pulled him close by his soft, silken strands; turning, twisting his own upper body to encounter the pale lips with the ferociousness that Draco seemed to be after.

But he had to break away soon, successfully distracted and overwhelmed by the hand moving quicker up and down his over-sensitive, pulsing flesh, making his breath come in short, ragged gasps of intense pleasure.

Intently staring at his lover's tight expression, the dark eyes still turned towards him, pupils blown and full of fire, Draco raised his other hand and sucked two of his fingers into his mouth, teasingly swirling his tongue around the digits, coating them with his saliva. All the while Blaise watched him, lips parting in a silent moan of pleasure both from the show Draco put on for his sake and the unrelenting hand fisting his straining erection fervently.

Then, with a teasing smirk, Draco brought his wet fingers down, pushing them in between the crack of Blaise's cheeks, quickly locating the puckered entrance, so inadequately guarded from him by only two rings of muscles.  
Without hesitation, Draco thrust the two digits in, up to his knuckles, groaning as he felt the inner walls clutch at him tightly, his own erection throbbing with the desire to have that vice-like grip _there_. Blaise hissed and panted as the roughness and burn of the sudden entrance mixed with the pleasure, only fuelling it and he gravitated towards his lover's presence as Draco pressed an open-mouthed kiss onto his shoulder.

For a long moment they were both still, then Draco pulled his fingers back slowly only to thrust them in again viciously, repeating the movement again and again, then curving them just so until the sudden shudder that went through Blaise's whole body told him unquestionably that he had found what he had searched.

Hungrily Draco took in the sight of the slightly curly, dark shock of hair falling forward with a groan, finding comfort in the coolness of the wall; he drunk in the quiet moans, relished in the movements of Blaise's hip that the Italian fought so much to suppress but couldn't, helpless to keep still, his hip moving forward into Draco's fist and back again onto the fingers scraping over his prostrate.

A shudder, a tightening of muscles as if in agony, a low moan and Blaise came in Draco's hand, the pale fingers moving forward to catch the pearly liquid spurting out. His other arm wound around his lover's torso, pulling the dark, unresisting body against his chest to offer some support even if it might not be needed. But he relished in the heaving of Blaise's ribcage that he could feel so much better in this position and in the still frantic pounding of the heart that he had claimed, reflected in the rapid, rhythmic movement of the carotid that was beating there so close to Draco's own lips beneath a thin layer of sweat covered skin.

His doing.

But Draco's own erection was almost painfully hard by now, straining against his lover's behind and weeping onto his lower back. And he hadn't more than a few moments of patience in him before he moved back a little bit, enough to coat his thrumming flesh with the sticky substance on his fingers.

"My turn..."

"No."

Burning, black eyes met molten mercury over a dark skinned shoulder and Blaise quickly turned around; Draco let him, because even though sex between them sometimes became a violent battle for dominance, there was still an unvoiced line never to be crossed. Choice.

That didn't mean that Draco's eyes didn't flash with irritation and challenge and demand, that they were only slightly assuaged by the still lustful gaze they encountered.

"Want to see you..." With that growled explanation the Italian hooked one leg behind Draco's knee and pulled him closer, holding onto his shoulders and using the wall as leverage to push himself up and wrap his legs around his lovers pale waist.

And Draco had to admit, that this was even better, seeing that strong jaw tense, those lips open in a silent scream as he pushed in with one quick thrust, gravity and Blaise's weight assisting him in the less than gentle invasion.

"So tight" he groaned, marvelling at how much more tightly his lover's muscle's squeezed him with the scanty makeshift lubrication. It was only made worse (or better) by the rhythmic clenching and unclenching as Blaise teased him with a lewd grin, even though he had to be in pain from the sudden stretching. But Merlin, if he didn't stop his tantalizing movements, Draco would come right then and there.

"Stop that..." he moaned.

"What _Draco_ ... no control at all?" Blaise laughed at him breathlessly.

Damn that stupid, arrogant, bastardly ... that's it!

With a sharp twist of his hips, Draco drove deeply into his lover, watching with satisfaction as the dark one's muscles tensed and he arched against him, head thrown back and he set a ruthless, relentless pace of brutal thrusts while Blaise clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into his flesh.

Merlin, this was heavenly, the way those long legs and arms latched on to him, Blaise's expression tense and distorted in mindless pleasure, his passage clenching and quivering around him while he pinned him to the wall, thrusting savagely into his body. Fire kindled in his groin and burned its way up into his stomach, his body, searing his nerves, making him moan and pant and the fibres of his muscles vibrate expectantly.

He could feel Blaise's length, once again stiff and swollen against his stomach and he smirked at the dishevelled look, the dark brown locks, wet with sweat, clinging to his forehead, lips bruised and eyes clenched.

"Beautiful..."

Growling, the Italian pushed forward to lock his lips onto Draco's, kissing him harshly, demandingly with more raw passion than finesse and still, it was nothing less than mind-blowing in both of their maybe not-so-humble opinions.

But they had to break away soon for lack of air and Blaise curled against him a bit more, leaning down to reach his neck and shoulder, sucking angry red marks onto his pale, easily bruising skin, varying his nibbles and bites from soft and tender to hard and ruthless and hurtful.

It was becoming too much, the delicious friction and tightness of his lover's body, the distracting pain in his shoulder, the looks of bliss and lust on Blaise's face whenever he drew away to arch against the wall or collect another of those burning, intense kisses. The throbbing pleasure became all-encompassing and yet he had enough awareness left to know that Blaise was not as far gone yet.

"Touch yourself!" He demanded, ordered, and though his lover's eyes burnt with indignation at his tone of voice, lust and desire and the intense, burning need to come outbalanced everything else. A hand wormed itself between their bodies and started to move up and down the hard length of Blaise's erection quickly, almost desperately. It didn't take long and Draco felt the strong muscle's around him spasm and tighten, so much it almost bordered on painful and his lover's body trembled and arched helplessly as his come splashed on both of their shirts.

And Draco followed suite with a horse cry, milked by the hot, warm passage surrounding him, his release rushing through his body like a shock of lightning and it was all he could do to keep standing and not let him and his lover fall to the ground. He buried his face in the nook of Blaise's shoulder though, panting against the sweat-soaked skin as he rode out his own orgasm, trying to reign in the furious beating of his heart and his still ragged breathing.

Well, that had been ... intense.

Merlin, what would Harry say if he'd seen them, could see them now? Their poor, innocent submissive... he'd probably blush and stammer and fiddle, at a loss of what to do with himself and yet unable to look away.  
Because while he wanted to flee them with Ives' help, Draco had seen his reactions to their advances, their touches and flirting, and whenever Harry didn't allow himself to think too much, they were far from repelling.

Too soon his spent erection slipped from his lover's body and Blaise's legs lowered themselves from around his chest. Reluctantly Draco drew back, pulled out his wand and started to vanish the traces of what had transpired just now. But as he considered removing the marks on Blaise's body and his own with a few minor healing charms, Draco halted. Perhaps it would do Harry good to be confronted with the obvious, undeniable evidence of Blaise's and his relationship.  
He knew Harry had been lying when he had said he wasn't gay – or bi for that matter – but did Harry? He probably hadn't thought much about it so far, and that needed to change if they wanted to win him.

But first it seemed they had to smooth over whatever Blaise had done.

"So." He fixed the Italian with a rigid stare. "Will you tell me now what truly happened?"

**END OF FLASHBACK**

Blaise silently smirked to himself as he remembered how Harry couldn't help staring at them and his thoughts inevitably returned to his and Draco's current conversation about having others watching them.

It was true that Blaise felt no desire to share his lover in such a way and have other's look at that delectable body with the same desire he felt for him or pure lust... and he had never had the urge to prove to others that Draco was undeniably his, it was enough that they themselves knew it.

But Harry ... while he didn't want anyone but him and Draco to be privileged to the view of the submissive's unique beauty, especially with those markings and feathers adorning him, he definitely wanted everyone to know the young Vykélari was off limits; and he wanted to prove to everyone, Harry's friends included, that the brunet belonged to them and that nobody would ever change that.  
Which was irritating, since it wasn't true.

Yet.

And still, Draco was right, Blaise was no exhibitionist and while he might indulge in dreams of devouring Harry's lips in front of his pretentious friends and imagining how they might react to seeing Harry forget himself and the world around him, quivering under Blaise's hands and lips, he wouldn't do it.  
He was the heir of a renowned pureblood family after all and he would behave accordingly.

Besides, Harry wouldn't want to be paraded around like that and he deserved more consideration, needed it. Especially after everything that had been revealed to them the previous day.

It certainly had been an unwelcome surprise that Harry wanted to leave, though Blaise sided with Adler's opinion on the matter. During their connections the boy certainly hadn't been tense and wary like one would be around one's perceived kidnappers and captors. No, he had no hard feelings towards them and furthermore Blaise had felt that Harry didn't want to leave. It therefore seemed to be the logical explanation that Harry had just needed the security of being able to leave at all at some point in the future, to start trusting them and their guidance right now after his transformation and to allow himself to enjoy his stay in Lanai Manor, enforced however it might have been at the beginning.

The emotions Blaise had sensed during their connection had quietened Draco's concerns somewhat and even appeased him enough to not be overly angry at his fiancé for having lost his control so spectacularly with the younger submissive.

Instead the blonde had voiced his concerns that their own instincts were coming forth more and more, a suspicion he had had since noticing that he wanted to impress and woo the Gryffindor like a displaying bird might do with a prospective mate.

Well, they'd just have to keep an eye on that.

* * *

  
The moment they entered the conference room, Draco knew something was fundamentally, tremendously wrong.

It certainly wasn't anything dramatic, nothing that most people would find suspicious or remarkable anyway. But in a manner it was like the sudden cacophony of flapping and screeching caused by a startled flock of birds that might or might not herald a lethal, hunting beast.  
In either case, only someone who had already been made into the prey of the cruellest, most heinous monsters hunting in the Forbidden Forest really learned to react to such an early warning signal – whether it still occurred in that accursed forest or a small piece of woodlands or a marketplace – with a momentary freezing, a mental shutdown after which, if the threat proved real, one panicked and fled mindlessly; but there were also those whose existence reduced itself to logic and cold blooded reason in such a situation – a mind running at full speed – processing the never ending influx of information from adrenaline heightened senses.

And by now Draco had learned that the only thing to be achieved by running was the turning of one's back to the danger. An unforgivable mistake with potentially fatal consequences.

Like the last time they had been in this long stretched galleria, the morning sun falling through the line of tall, wide windows swathed the room in a faintly white-golden, almost surreal glow and threw long shadows onto the pale walls, marbleized with tones of beige and sandstone. And over it all was, resplendent, the assembly of Roman gods, gazing down at them from their aloft position in the breathtaking fresco adorning the arched ceiling.

The two-way-mirror connecting Lanai and Malfoy Manor was also still hovering in the air at the far wall, showing the same parlour of Draco's home where their parents and Severus had last met them and as if they had never left it, all of them sat there enthroned in their respective arm chairs and the only differences indeed were the two missing portraits among the ranks of Malfoy Vykélari as well as the robes that those gathered in the parlour wore.

But it wasn't the familiarity that stroke Draco, that sudden feeling of a Déjà Vu, no, it was the gaze of his mother and her pose; so painfully stiff and tense, as if someone had tried to cast a Body-Bind curse at her that had terribly gone wrong. It was the very same posture that she had almost permanently adapted during those nightmarish months when their home had hosted Death Eaters and the Dark Lord in person, the months when Draco and his parents had almost become prey in their own home, working animals that had served their time and were waiting for their master to make time and butcher them.

At that time, his father had still been convinced he could win the Dark Lords favour again, but Narcissa Malfoy had doubted it, known better than to believe in a future at his lordship's side as his trusted servants, bathing in his none-existent grace.

Draco had learned to read her well when she was like this, unaccustomed as he had been to dealing with truly dangerous men; because the little hints she had given him had been, well, not quite vital but at least essential to his well-being.

And now, when he had thought he'd never have to see her again like that, something had put her in that state of fear and determination again. Something had happened, a dreadful, unexpected event that made Narcissa Malfoy, one of the bravest Slytherins he had ever known, fear for the future of their family.

Immediately his brain leapt into action at that early warning signal, trying to dissect his mother's expression into clues to decipher just what was wrong, painstakingly going over everything that might have happened in the last 48 hours to put this tense, cracked inexpressiveness on that proud woman's face.

Had Harry's letter found its way to the public? It was possible, if a bit early. The letter would only just have reached England by now, provided that the owl was fast and strong and rested only little during the journey.

Or perhaps the Aurors had managed to uncover their – especially his father's – underhanded tactics in the Malfoy trials?  
Merlin, that would be disastrous; his father's perpetrations in that matter were as grave as can be: the spying potions used on the three Aurors working on their cases, and the potions intended to make them sympathize with their family, bribery, threats... and damn it, while Draco and his mother had had no part in it, they were at the very least confidants to the Malfoy patriarch's misdeeds.

But maybe it wasn't that dire, certainly that mad sparkle Draco had seen in his father's eyes during the last months of the war would be back again in those silver pools if that were the case. And they were clear of insanity as far as he could judge from this distance, only cold and infuriated.

Had one of the three henchmen his father had employed to keep an eye on the Aurors tried to blackmail them? That certainly would enrage the Malfoy patriarch. But no, no that wasn't very likely; apart from the fact that they, too, had been given that mild variation of a love potion, this was not a matter that money couldn't resolve, nothing that could ever truly succeed in unbalancing Narcissa Malfoy.

Which only left Harry's letter.

Draco wasn't sure if Blaise noticed his disquiet or if he had just stood still for too long, but he felt the Italian brush his arm fleetingly in a vague gesture of support and comfort, a gentle reminder of his solid presence, and together they walked along the length of the U-shaped table and the row of stiff chairs, every step that brought them closer revealing more lines of graveness and tension on the faces of people both he and Blaise had thought to be unconquerable not so long a time ago.

Amalyne certainly hid her feelings well, cold and beautiful and untouchable she seemed, just as she had always been. Like a frost covered, Black Baccara Rose she sat there upright and aloof as if whatever problem had arisen had no bearing on her and Draco was forcefully reminded that his future mother-in-law was indeed a murderess who had evaded conviction seven times. So maybe it wasn't surprising that she was still relatively untroubled.

But his godfather was not so unaffected. Even though he rested in his chair like a dark crow passively observing the melodrama of life, with his elbows propped up on the arm rests of his chair and his folded hands hiding his thin lips, the dark gaze spoke volumes as it flickered towards his old friend, Draco's father, with a sense of sharp alertness that Draco had come to associate with this man, but also with a palpable amount of alarm and wariness.

And his father... from this close Draco could see the unholy fire burning in his eyes and he knew that under the facade of the sophisticated aristocrat that the Malfoy patriarch usually portrayed lurked the vengeful, unforgiving creature of pure rancour dangerously close to the surface, ready to be released.  
He wasn't sure if he wanted to know just which poor bastard would have to try and fend it off.

"Where have you been?" The question lashed out at them like a whip and Draco shared a quick glance with his fiancé and lover and with it their understanding of the situation within that single moment. This was going to be bad.

Severus seemed to think so too, and with his pragmatic way he tried to stabilize the atmosphere as if it was one of his potions getting out of control "Lucius, this is not helping..."

"We are right on time, father, as you well know." Draco said calmly, cutting his godfather short; he had cast a tempus right before they had entered the conference room, after all, just to be sure. "What..."

But his question was interrupted in turn. "Have you mated him yet?"

Sharply, Draco eyed the Malfoy patriarch.  
So, this most likely was about that letter... but for as long as he wasn't sure, he would be damned before he admitted to their knowledge of Harry's rash act. Maybe it was something else altogether that had his father in such a state and in that case it was better their parents were unaware of Harry contacting his friends in any way for as long as possible.

Right next to him, Blaise's lips curled into a trace of a snarl and he drawled a "No" at the blonde man in the mirror, deliberately letting his annoyance bleed into his voice. After all, merely two days ago all of them had agreed that it would be better to court their submissive gently instead of pressuring him and he had vowed in front of all of them that he'd never force Harry.

"By Morgaine, why not? You certainly have had enough time!" Lucius snapped, his long fingers clawing into the upholstering of his arm rest.

"We agreed that we'd not force him! Harry isn't ready to mate." Blaise hissed back, aggressively enough that Draco brushed his wrist fleetingly to calm him some. This was not a battlefield where they could afford to let emotions rule their line of attack.

"Well, the point has come where this has become a luxury we cannot afford..."

"We gave him our promise!"

"Only a fool would..."

The situation might have escalated, had not Narcissa intervened at that moment, her calm, authoritative voice slicing through the boiling atmosphere. "Lucius! They do not know."

"What do we not know?" Draco demanded with narrow eyes. "What happened?"

To his astonishment, his father pulled forth his wand and with a harsh gesture he levitated an issue of the Daily Prophet from one of the side tables towards the mirror, so rapidly that it clashed against it with an audible thud, the front page pressed flush against the reflective surface.

"This! This happened!"

Once more, Draco's and Blaise's eyes met worriedly after only one glance at the newspaper. This was quickly becoming worse and worse.

Half of the page's surface was covered with a collage of three images, the left one showing that awful photograph of Lucius Malfoy in the rough attire of an Askaban prisoner that had been published in this very newspaper only two years before. It did not bode well that the article's author had chosen this specific picture, for every reader would forcefully be reminded of the Malfoy patriarch's history as a Death Eater; a not very subtle attempt to further discredit a man who was already treading on more than thin ice where the public's goodwill was concerned.

The one on the right side pictured Draco and Blaise in front of the courtroom right after Draco's acquittal, made when a journalist had interviewed the blonde young man to his opinion on Harry standing witness for him. It had annoyed Draco endlessly at that time, not only because once again, everything had been about Harry Potter, even when it was his life, his future that had been at stake in that very courtroom, but also because he had just wanted to return home with his lover and leave that part of his past behind him for good.

And the third picture, the largest in the middle, showed Harry with his hair in wild disarray, a bit longer than it was now, his face smeared with soot and a few drops of blood. The black and white photo could not do justice to his so expressive emerald eyes but it had managed to capture the utter exhaustion in them, the unique mixture of grief and relief and bafflement at being alive when so many were not, that only a survivor of battle and war could really emphasize with.  
Draco remembered that picture well, someone had shot it right after the Battle of Hogwarts and he was sure that every wizard in Britain and many outside of it had seen it.

And everyone gazing at it now would be reminded of just who this was, of just what he had done and gone through for each and every wizard in Britain.

Together with the article's title, emblazoned in big letters above it all, the collage was more than disheartening.

'VYKÉLARI SUBMISSIVE FLEDGED: HARRY POTTER ABDUCTED FROM ST. MUNGO'S'

"Oh Merlin..." Blaise breathed next to him and Draco could only concur as he started to read the article, feeling as if someone had punched him in the gut.

* * *

  
Blaise had no idea whether he should be more furious or more impressed by what he read in the article. As someone who had used a manipulation of the press as a means to achieve his goals in the past, he certainly had to concede a certain amount of aptness to that Crane.

Damn it, he couldn't even accuse her of calumny...

All in all, the only law that she had broken was the Vykélari law of secrecy concerning submissives and since she made it seem as if Harry was being held captive, abused and possibly raped and forcefully mated, and since she was a journalist who could claim liberty of press, they'd be publically lynched if they tried to prosecute her.

But, damn it, the bloody, fucking _gall_ of that woman, he silently cursed as he went over the article.

'...The Boy-Who-Lived in the hands of a former Death Eater…'  
Well, it was true that no one could honestly contest Lucius having been a follower of the Dark Lord, but to say it like that was going a bit far, wasn't it?

'...refusing to be accompanied by the Healer in charge, Andrew Cowen…'

Now that really ticked Blaise off! They had refused to let Cowen into the room, because that asshole had tied their Harry down with leather stripes that had chafed open his sensitive skin at the ankles and wrists and had not even treated the wounds; and because he had bound his wings together into an impossible position that had made the muscles cramp painfully... damn it, Harry had been scared to death! Remembering the desperate warning signals the poor submissive had emitted still made his flesh crawl.

By Mordred's vengeful nature, he would _so_ sue that perverted bastard and wipe that conceited expression of his face until he came begging for Harry to make them stop... he'd be fortunate if Blaise left him some _knuts_ to fend for himself!

And then he'd hex him with huge abscesses.

That Asshole.

...

Where had he been? Ah yes...

'...abducted, forced into a relationship with two other men and then oppressed for the rest of his life…' and just a sentence later '…rape and deprivation of liberty…'  
Well, that at least was an accusation that was easy to refute, with nothing more than an impartial witness and a bit of veritaserum; after all, he and Draco could honestly claim innocence in that regard... well, maybe the part about the deprivation of liberty was not completely unfounded but really, that was taking it out of context...

In any case, Blaise had to admit that the Mediwizard's statement was cleverly and beautifully incorporated into the article. He would have positioned it more closely to the end so that any reader would have those sentences fresh in their mind once finishing their lecture, but otherwise...

But now the article really became interesting. Crane undeniably used the Mediwizard's statement to affiliate Harry's plight to the ruthlessness and power of purebloods. 'Purebloods can't keep on trampling over the rights of everyone else just because their families forged the laws and political structures our society is build up on now to their advantage.' She wrote there.

If not handled correctly, this situation could dwindle into a public uprising against the purebloods in their society, and that would not end well for them at all. Not after their position had already been weakened by the last Wizarding War.

Even Mrs Palmer's following account could not invalidate that allegation. On the contrary, while creating the impression of giving voice to different opinions, Crane only strengthened the criticism at their society's distribution of power by having the historian name famous examples. And indeed Blaise had to admit that purebloods had always tried to retain as much autonomy as possible, granting the ministry only the minimum of power, supporting weak, easily led ministers...

By Morgaine. This article was not mainly about Harry Potter, even if it tried its best to make it seem so. It was the declaration of a cold war at which end stood a ministry controlling every aspect of their life, leaving single families and individuals little possibilities to significantly influence political events. Crane used Harry Potter, the war hero as an iconic figure, the martyr kindling the people's fighting spirit to try and disempower the gentry that had ruled for centuries. And she was damned successful at that.

Ending the article by describing what would have happened to their Harry 300 years ago and then passing the ball to the ministry by appealing to its duty as the law enforcer and protector of its citizens as well as reminding them of the debt to Harry for fighting their war just gave proof to her goal.

Merlin, he could just imagine how that would tear their sweet Harry apart. Blaise knew that those were societal changes Harry would approve of, especially now with Kingsley Shacklebold as a strong and just minister, but at the same time he would hate being made into a tool and weapon once again. And perhaps, perhaps he'd even be somewhat indignant for their sake, because while Harry was portrayed as the martyred hero, Draco and he were made into the foul villains and Blaise liked to think that Harry cared enough to be affronted at that.

He couldn't really explain why that would make a warm and fuzzy feeling spread through his chest, but it did and he only hoped that the newspaper plastered against the mirror in front of their faces would successfully hide the tiny smile he couldn't quite keep from erupting.

A glance to his side, though, sobered him up quickly. Draco's stony expression as he kept on staring at the article, had him reach out for his lover worriedly.

"Draco?"

Obviously Lucius took that as a sign that they had finished their lecture, for the newspaper was suddenly ripped away from the mirror, only to instantly catch flames of the palest blue and burn to a cinder within a moment or two, still smouldering shreds raining down onto the expensive carpet.

Alarmed, Blaise eyed his future father-in-law warily, taking in the harsh lines of fury on his face, cracks and fissures in the once so solid wall of control the blonde usually cultivated, wondering when he had ever seen him lose his bearings before like this and coming up blank. He had not been there of course, to see how the Malfoy patriarch had held himself during the war, but the vision he presented now was so far from the sophisticated, superior aristocrat he knew, it made him step back involuntarily, as if loss of control was a disease he might contract.

"This could ruin our family!"

"Lucius!" Severus interrupted once again, his voice sharp with reproach as he sat up in his chair. "Get hold of yourself!"

"Shut up, Severus!" The blonde snarled with barely a glance towards the former potions master, his eyes tearing into his son.

"You have to mate him and return to England at once. If this matter is not resolved immediately, the public will crush us!"

"Father..." Draco tried to stop Lucius' ranting, but to no avail and Blaise stepped closer to him, aghast of what was being asked of them, both from Lucius and all the promises they had made to Harry ... and to Ronald Weasley little more than half an hour ago.  
The skin under which the Tiwaz slept like a beast in hibernation prickled uncomfortably on his forearm and he had to consciously suppress the desire to cover it with his hand.

"Already they are thirsting for our blood. The article has been out for barely an hour and already I had to adapt the wards to keep the howlers out! Purebloods demand we settle this before it becomes a problem for all of us, and Potter's fanclub clamours for their Boy Saviour. My trial is in two weeks exactly and the public will demand punishment..."

"Forcing Potter will gain you nothing, at this point, Lucius!" Severus interrupted and Blaise felt Draco relax at his side a bit, and he himself felt overcome with a pathetic gratefulness for the cold, pragmatic voice of reason their former potions professor managed to retain under the worst of circumstances.  
"Do you think they will go easier on you just because the man you forced their hero to marry happens to be your son?"

"Whoever said that the public would have to learn of it?" Amalyne spoke up calmly from her chair at the side, her dark eyes resting idly on the folded hands in her lap.

Blaise felt his lips part in consternation as he stared at his mother. "You cannot possibly think that you could ever keep something like that a secret."

"Why not?" Narcissa asked, cold determination freezing her delicately chiselled features into a mask of stone and ice. "He willingly witnessed for me and Draco, didn't he, when there has been nothing but bad blood between him and us in the past. Why ever would he do that if he hadn't already felt drawn to my son?"

"Such a touching love-story..." Amalyne pondered with a hint of derisiveness, her gaze wandering over both her son and son-in-law, and Blaise knew his reaction was closely monitored and judged as she spun her web of lies around them. A black widow, indeed.

"The hero who tragically fell in love with his enemy, without any hope of ever having his love returned, holding on to the only means of getting the attention of what his heart desired: by antagonizing him. But he comes to his love's rescue when he is needed and only a couple of weeks later the favour is returned when the boy comes into an inheritance that allows him to be with his love." Her lips curled into a tiny smile. "As if you were fated to be together."

"Harry would never play along with such a charade." Draco said as calmly as he could, still trying to reason with their parents, when, in Blaise's opinion, they were obviously beyond all reason.

Narcissa shook her head slowly. "Of course he will. Trust me, I have my means. Just bring him here before me."

"Mother..."  
Blaise reached over, laying one hand onto the small of his lover's back at hearing that voice shivering with the sound of betrayal, reassured that Draco was standing his ground when he leaned back slightly into his touch.

"You were the one who said it would be better if Harry were to enter a mating bond willingly."

Narcissa inclined her head in acknowledgement at her son's reminder, but it was Lucius who answered, now calmer once again, sure of the support of his wife and Amalyne and reassured by their confidence in their little plan. "The situation has changed."

Draco let out a flow of air, disbelievingly trying to come up with something that would make their parents reconsider.  
"Just give me the chance to resolve this, father, two days or three, I will think of something, I promise. We have not forced him or assaulted him. With veritaserum we can attest to that! This article has no basis in fact and I can prove it..."

Slowly, Lucius stood, an imposing figure now as his body stretched to its full height. Draco had always envied his father for his redoubtable presence commanding respect so easily, but right now the vision was cracked by his earlier loss of control, at least in Blaise's opinion, who nurtured his indignation in silence at Draco's side, angry that they would endanger his and Draco's and Harry's happiness in order to avoid facing the consequences of their own foolishness.

"Even if you managed to do just that my son, it would not earn us back the public's favour. Only when it looks as if that brat mated you out of love they will not dare to put his father-in-law back into prison."

Draco shook his head, a jerky movement betraying his turmoil. "We swore to not let anyone force him into a mating bond."

His fury flaring again, Lucius took a few quick steps towards the mirror until he stood directly before them, his eyes blazing. "You have a duty to your family! For once in your life, fulfil it!"

In a placating gesture, Draco raised his hands, his voice strained as he tried to not let his father see how much that sentence had hurt. "Give me a few days of time, I will do my utmost to keep you out of prison, I swear."

At the same time, Blaise started seething inwardly, shivering with suppressed rage like a rattle snake about to strike. How dare they, how dare they ask this of them, how dare that man try to guilt-trap his lover when it had been Lucius who had almost brought about the Malfoy family's ruin? How dare he make his fiancé feel inadequate?

He should be glad instead that there were 1500 kilometres between them or Blaise would make him sorry, for ever having spoken, having even thought those words...

Growling Blaise whipped out his wand before Lucius could try to pressure Draco even further and snarled at him "We are not going to force Harry or allow you to come anywhere near him while he is still unmated!"

With those words and a quick wave of his wand, he closed the mirror connection before he could say something unfortunate towards Lucius or his mother, that might get either himself or Draco disinherited.

... which might not be that intolerable. He had enough money from his father's side to support both himself and Draco comfortably and if it meant getting rid of those _hypocrites_ , it might be worth it... Merlin, he couldn't stop shivering with rage and disgust!

Suddenly, there were gentle fingers on his shoulder, and his attention snapped back to his pale lover. "Are you alright, Blaise? You're trembling..."

Whirling around, Blaise grabbed Draco's collar and pulled him close until their faces ware barely more than an inch apart, staring into surprised pools of mercury, eyebrows drawn together. He could feel the blonde's breathing hitch and his fingers start to pry his own away from that expensive shirt, but he wouldn't let him.  
"Don't you _dare_ " he growled, shaking his lover once for good measure, "taking those words to heart!"

For a few seconds, Draco blinked at him in incomprehension, then his gaze softened and he fixed him with a wry smirk, finally giving up on his endeavour of loosening Blaise's grip on his collar.  
"You're such an idiot. But I love you, too."

* * *

  
Back in England, Severus looked at his friend of old as if he saw him for the first time. Had he ever witnessed Lucius lose himself in rage and fear like this? The Slytherin prefect and king cobra of their illustrious house in Hogwarts who had introduced him to the finer circles in society, the aristocrat, heir of Abraxas Malfoy, the Death Eater, the Father and Husband who had made him godfather to his only son.

A son who quickly proved to be worth far more than his father. And wasn't that rich? Not a year ago Draco had been a brat who wouldn't have been able to control his own emotions if his life depended on it; only that, once his life did depend on it, he had reigned himself in, sometimes with obvious difficulties, but he had managed. Now, as if fate was playing one of her cynical games again, it was Lucius who had become the childish, sulking brat. And hadn't Severus told Harry in their Occlumency lessons that this was the ultimate sign of weakness?

Cygnus would have been appalled had he seen what had just happened.

Even Marcus Malfoy and the other Vykélari portraits stared at them in silence and Severus couldn't help but wonder if they were more taken aback by the patriarch's behaviour or Draco's disobedience.

Merlin, what was he supposed to do? If he supported Draco, Lucius might end up in prison, and that after all he had done to keep him out of it. And for what? For James Potter's little mirror image.

Only that James would never have put aside a feud that had lasted for the better part of a decade to help his enemy escape the naked walls of a prison cell. And Harry Potter had never, not once, harassed or bullied another student, well aside from Draco, but his godchild had never wasted a chance to get the better of his nemesis himself, so he supposed both boys more than deserved what they got. Mostly.

And he couldn't ban those memories any longer from his mind, those memories of a child raised in the darkness of a cupboard, always on the run when he was not playing House Elf, running from a barking, growling dog and his vicious, fat cousin and his goons. Memories of that loud, obnoxious whale of a man who treated his nephew so harshly it was a small miracle that the young man he had become had any self-confidence to begin with – never mind that Severus had never found the Potter brat lacking in that regard, rather the contrary much to his regret.  
And most of all, Petunia's scrunched up face, always looking at Potter as if he was something her sister-in-law's foul dog had thrown up on her carpet. Lyly's only sister.

Hadn't Severus' own father looked at him just like that?

Maybe, he reflected with a humourless snort, that was why he had felt the unquenchable thirst to put the boy down even after he had seen those memories, because he, Severus Snape, had not managed to bounce back and continue as if nothing had happened after his own abuse. How could it be that Potter remained unmarred and bright and ignorant of the world's true black and bleak countenance whatever fate dealt him when Snape himself had been scarred by it even before he had reached that special age of eleven?  
And Severus had had a room to sleep in.

In any case, while he still thought the boy to be a rash, obnoxious brat with more luck than judgement who was in no way 'husband material', especially for his precious godson, he truly thought that the boy did not deserve another prison, especially one of the kind Lucius planned to force him into.

So he watched and listened as Narcissa, having come to stand next to her raging husband, effectively calmed him with a few well-chosen words, explaining to him her plan to trap Harry Potter without Draco and Blaise ever learning of it and his resolve hardened.

He had promised to help protect Lily Potter's son, her only legacy to the world, and as long as the brat would not stop getting into problems too big to crawl away from on his own clumsy hands and feet, he would do just that.  



	20. Prepare To Strike The Unprepared

Since the meeting with their parents had been shorter than anticipated and they had no intention of disturbing Harry and his friends and cutting their time together short as well, Blaise and Draco used the thusly gained extra time to inform both Adler and Ives of what had transpired between them and their parents just now.

The two portraits, while being somewhat shocked at the article (well, truthfully Draco was not sure if Adler had been fazed at all, but Ives' eyes had betrayed his inner feelings, widening and flickering towards his husband's unwavering, stony expression) they had not been overly surprised by Lucius' and their mothers' behaviour but alarmed nonetheless and they had advised them to take precautionary measures now that Harry's status as a submissive had become common knowledge – not that that piece of advice had been in any way necessary. Sometimes Adler was just overbearing.

In hindsight though, Draco thought regretfully, they maybe should have brought the two paintings with them to the conference room to begin with, perhaps the situation with Lucius, Narcissa and Amalyne would not have gotten out of hand so spectacularly if his ancestor's painting had been there as well, because he knew that Adler and his snidely remarks sometimes sufficed to humble a raving mind enough to reinstall some logic to it. But in all honesty, Draco had his doubts.

His father had always been unmovable in his goals and wishes and always pursued them ruthlessly, never letting others, not even his own wife, influence his decisions. He did what he thought was best for himself and his family, for everyone carrying the proud Malfoy name and admittedly, most often his leadership was beneficial for all of them, his plans well-conceived if sometimes a bit daring and risky. In fact, if not for the mess with the Dark Lord, the Malfoy name would still be flourishing under Lucius' care, their family thriving due to the questionable but effective methods he used in his endeavour to make the world bend to his will and grovel at his feet.

He, Lucius Malfoy.

But if he fell, Draco had no doubt that he might never ascend again; his transgressions were too severe and too many. The worst was that his father was not even aware of just how close he was to the abyss; and now that he had thought of a solution, he would not even consider another one, much less listen to his son and fiancé as they proposed a plan that might still not be enough to save him from prison. He would try to force Harry into their arms or make Draco and Blaise do it for him.

And wouldn't that be oh so easy, to threaten Harry's friends and blackmail the young submissive, especially now after they had made Pansy give the Weasleys her mirror, made them trust Blaise and Draco a little bit; they could just march into the Burrow and kidnap the two or three that Harry loved the most by slipping them time fused portkeys... or ask Pansy to do it, the girl would probably find some twisted fun in playing games with bloodtraitors.  
Harry would have no choice but to give himself to them, establish the connection and let them do whatever they wanted to him. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived could be his – body, mind and magic – without much of an effort.

If only they would gain more than a vessel of hate or worse, a breathing corpse. Because those lively eyes would either die or forever burn with betrayal that time would transform into disgust and loathing as surely as any seed can do nothing but perish or become whatever plant it was destined to grow into.

That must not happen.

Draco was not sure if he could stand to see those vibrant, spring-green eyes regard him in such a way, let alone touch the lithe body while the vitriolic pools of emerald glared daggers at him or were closed against tears of desperation and resignation that would nevertheless escape in bitter rivulets.

What a repulsive image.

That alone would have been reason enough to protect the Gryffindor from the fate his father wanted to enforce upon him, had been reason enough to vow on a Tiwaz rune that Harry was safe from them, but it wasn't the only one.

The truth was that Draco loved his parents dearly and being raised with the beliefs of purebloods and the old wizarding traditions meant to be raised to be loyal to them as well; the notion couldn't be suppressed entirely even while at the same moment he couldn't quite ignore Blaise's harsh, furious words during that conversation with Adler and Ives. _'They are reducing us to mere tools!'_ he had growled, 'Pawns to be pushed around on their chessboard'.  
If only Draco could honestly say that he hadn't thought the same when his father had tried to force him to submit to his wishes, practically telling him he had been a disgrace so far, never having fulfilled his duty to his family. Of course Draco had know that his father had never quite forgiven him for not revealing Harry Potter that day in Malfoy Manor but still the words had hurt. And consequently an indignant voice now whispered alluringly inside his head that his father mistook a duty to their family with a duty to him as an individual, that it would be oh so satisfactory to just throw the disrespect shown to him right back in his face and leave him to take the consequences of his own damn failures, failures that nearly had cost their family everything. Talking about the duty to the Malfoy clan...

But that would be petty, spiteful defiance and unworthy of any Malfoy heir and even though his fiancé talked about surpassing their parents and a literal Ragnarök of both of their families, Draco wasn't quite ready yet to abandon either his mother or his father and so, even though he couldn't deny the not insubstantial level of affection he held for their greenfinch that had caused him to pledge more than just his protection to Harry by swearing to do right by him, and even though it was the only possible outcome of his inner debate, Draco would have probably needed more time for the decision making, if he didn't think protecting Harry to be in his father's interest as well.

Because, assuming that Lucius was successful and the three young Vykélari returned to England now as bond mates and assuming that this led to Lucius being acquitted of all charges in his trials at the end of the month ... if only one single wizard found out, the Malfoy patriarch might find himself hunted down in a dark alleyway and lynched for his crimes against someone who had been practically declared a national treasure. And there was at least one wizard who would recognize their betrayal for what it was immediately from the bleeding of the Tiwaz rune. It would be foolish indeed to hope that Harry's best friend would keep silent or not take revenge when he himself had sworn to do so.

No, if Draco wanted to save his family, he would have to keep them away from Harry, even if it meant a few years of Azkaban for his father.

And so, within the next hour, Blaise assembled all House Elves to instruct them not to let anyone enter the grounds of Lanai Manor, to protect Harry by all means necessary if someone or something should gain entrance and make sure the submissive would use the portkey to flee if such a situation should arrive; to which end he of course revoked Harry's ban to leave – it wouldn't do to trap Harry inside the house and its surrounding gardens without any chance of getting himself out of harm's way.

Furthermore Blaise ordered his servants to intercept all incoming owls and not let their submissive have any letter without them having read it first or at least being present when he read it.  
It was partly a precaution against Narcissa, who, if she had truly found a way to gain as much power over Harry as she professed to have, must not be allowed to contact the young submissive at all; but it was also a measure targeting other dominant Vykélari and possibly some of the more fanatic followers of the light. There were many who would risk quite a lot to not see Harry bound to such powerful, dark families after all.

One could argue that it might have been more efficient to just change the wards but neither Blaise nor Draco were exceptionally experienced and a mistake could weaken the Manor's defences considerably, a danger they weren't prepared to risk.

Additionally, on Adler's wish, Blaise granted both Vykélari portraits a House Elf as a servant to do their bidding so that in an emergency their long deceased advisors could take action on their own.

Now, after securing the Manor as best as they could, Draco and Blaise had only one more thing to do in their attempt to take care of the factors that made Harry vulnerable; a last precaution which, to Draco's endless irritation, pertained fully to Harry's friends.

Trying to wrap his mind about that felt a bit as if he was trying to swallow a dry, scrunched up ball of parchment of equally dry 22 inches history of magic homework. It was inconceivable and certainly unprecedented, but it would happen nonetheless: Draco Malfoy was actually going to have to protect the last descendants of a family with which his own had had a blood feud for generations as well as a muggleborn, a girl that had punched him once, for Merlin's sake!

The beaver and the weasels. Well, the matter at least didn't lack a certain amount of irony, considering he had spent some terrific moments as a ferret himself. In a way, he fit right in, didn't he?

God, the very notion of doing what he was going to do, was driving him mad...

But he wasn't complaining as he walked alongside Blaise to Harry's rooms again. A sense of foreboding had flooded him since they had left the conference room under the critical gazes of the Roman Triumvirate Jupiter, Juno and Apollo; it was like the looming presence of a Grim and it made his muscles tense and his wings flex beneath the skin of his back.

Maybe it had something to do with the grim silence of his fiancé, with how fiercely the Italian looked ahead, his jaw set and the ligaments of his throat protruding.

But then, Draco wasn't surprised. Blaise knew best what his mother was capable of and together, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy and Amalyne Zabini were indeed a striking triumvirate themselves, the British Triumvirate whose wrath, power and cunning should not be taken lightly.

Nonetheless, he hated seeing him so tense even if he knew that a certain amount of unrest was healthy in their situation. There was nothing better after all to sharpen one's alertness. So he aligned his steps to those of Blaise and laid an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer, pressing a kiss on the fabric there just as Blaise had done to him in that elevator that had brought them to the Spell Damage wing in St. Mungo's and to Harry.  
And just like Draco had done that day, which seemed to be a lifetime away now, Blaise relaxed slightly and rested his cheek on Draco's forehead for a few precious moments, his arm sneaking around Draco's chest also.

* * *

  
Harry had started to become restless when the two Slytherins had been gone for longer than the agreed two hours. After all he knew already that it wasn't like them to be late... and the article, what if they had learned of it by now? If they were able to give him the means to directly speak with his friends over such a distance then surely they would have someone back in England who'd already have informed them about it via the same or at least a similar method.

Honestly, Harry was a bit nervous about their reaction. Of course he didn't expect them to go back on all of their promises and try to end the whole sticky situation by making him mate with them and he was convinced that they would do their best to keep him safe – which was still a rather strange, weird conception; it wasn't as if he had ever depended on others to protect him or thought he would in no way be able to deal with his inheritance without them holding and patting his hand. In any case he didn't rate them as a danger to himself.

But from the little that Blaise and Draco and also Ives had told him, it had been customary to go into complete isolation after the _younger_ and _stronger_ one of a pair of Vykélari came into his inheritance. He didn't want to lose the contact to his friends again; Merlin, he hadn't known how much he had missed talking to them until just now, with them sitting there in front of him. Everything just always seemed so trivial and manageable when they were together, the Golden Trio. And sitting now on a heap of sofa cushions scattered over the floor in front of that mirror, listening to Mione and Ron prattling on about Teddy and Remus and Tonks, how the twins had secretly started to search for all Malfoy and Zabini properties, coming up with crazy but ingenious plans to break into each and every one of them in an attempt to find and rescue Harry, and that Arthur had informed Kreacher of the situation and that the Elf almost had a heart attack from the elation of serving a Vykélari master who would soon join with a _proper_ pureblood family. After having been given several potions – amongst them a Calming Draught and an Invigoration Draught – the old and still exuberantly happy Kreacher had started to clean up Grimmauld Place with an unprecedented vigour. Listening to all of that, it was as if he was hearing them speak of someone else, as if the nightmarish full moon of a few days ago had never happened, as if he was just on ... on the first vacation of his life...

Harry didn't want to lose that again for who knew how long.

And he still wanted to return to Hogwarts even if it should prove to be dangerous.

Well, if Blaise and Draco tried to clip his wings and lock him up like a tame canary, he'd show them just how _submissive_ he really was... but somehow he doubted he'd have to resort to any underhanded tactics, well, as long as Blaise managed to keep his hands to himself that is. Aside from that, the two Slytherins had shown themselves surprisingly willing to compromise.

And even more empathetic than he had ever imagined a Slytherin to be able to be, what with how they had treated him after learning of the more gruesome details of his first transformation. A bit clumsy, maybe, in their – very unnecessary – efforts to spare him further distress, but one should appreciate the effort, right? It didn't seem much different from appreciating Molly's protectiveness when she had tried to keep him and her children away from the Order's work and the gruesome news of the Death Eaters' attacks while being determined to join the fighting and the war nonetheless, knowing that he was inevitably the pivotal figure to victory.

Was this the madness that Hermione had spoken of? Was he being blinded by a pathetic gratefulness for whatever scraps of kindness and affection, faked or real, were thrown at him, so much so that he confused his own feelings? Saw and felt things in Draco's and Blaise's expressions and emotions that were not there?  
The thought was fleeting and it wavered in his mind mistily, vague as a mirage and the closer he thought about it, the surer he was of its falsity with the memories of their short connections a reassuring, warm balance to this new argument... much clearer though, was the small but ever-growing seed of indignation of being analysed and judged like a laboratory rat, grouped together with countless other pitiful 'victims' falling for those with power over them. Who should have the right to say that empathy and compassion were wrong, even if they were spent on someone who had harmed you? Everyone was the product of their environment; almost everyone could become a criminal under the right circumstances. Sirius had been a thief and both he and Remus had almost become the murderers of Peter Pettigrew, even in front of thirteen year old teenagers. Severus had done unspeakable things but in the end he had become a hero in Harry's eyes even if many would not think so and even if he was still an ass.

There were always two sides to every coin so why not show a bit understanding? Wasn't that the reason he had witnessed for Draco and Narcissa to begin with? Because he had understood how they had been driven into a corner. And no one could say that it had been the Stockholm Syndrome speaking then and not his overactive sense of justice.  
Whether he was crazy or not, anyone who just bothered to look could see that both Blaise and Draco were trying their best. Who was he to deny them another chance? Dumbledore would have wanted him to think and act like that, Harry was sure. While the old wizard had undeniably committed countless mistakes in his long life, Harry refused to believe that this attitude was one of them. The war might never have been won if Albus Dumbledore hadn't given a certain young Slytherin the benefit of a doubt, even though Harry really couldn't endorse how the headmaster had used Snape as a spy.

Harry was just contemplating if it would be too bothersome trying to convince his two friends of his point of view – they could be frustratingly stubborn and sometimes Harry thought that there were no weapons or defences against the weird, counterintuitive logic of women – when a quiet knock interrupted his friends' chatter, the gentle trickle of words drying out immediately and a guarded veil descending to curtain their expression but Harry didn't pay them much attention, too busy with the little summersaults his stomach did as if he was again falling into a warm thermal suddenly raising him higher and higher.

The reason for that of course was nothing more than Harry's understandable apprehension regarding that damnable article, nothing else. Really. Well, and the fear that his friends and his hosts might tear each other to pieces over said article.

And the concern that it might harm Draco and Blaise.

"Just come in!" He called out quickly, then became uncomfortably aware of how gracelessly he slouched there on the probably very expensive cushions scattered over the ground as he supported his body on his arms that were propped up behind him. His fingers twitched with the sudden urge to sit up straighter, but he thought better of it, especially when the two Slytherins entered, lips bursting into smirks upon seeing his position. Why the hell would he suddenly start being concerned about offending the snakes with his disregard for appearances? This was who he was and he wouldn't change that; if they really wanted to court him, then the whole package with the lack of manners.  
Besides, Ron and Hermione were showing as little care for decorum as he was, having abandoned their chairs for the floor long ago and weren't they as the Gryffindor lions entitled to some lying about? Big cats were like that.

With confident steps Draco and Blaise stalked over to him, giving curt nods of greeting to his friends, unperturbed by the heavy silence filling the room, a silence that Harry was uncomfortably aware of as he prayed to any deity who might listen to please have those four behave civilly towards each other.

Well, the Slytherins at least seemed to have decided on the very popular tactic of suppression, sauntering over to the three of them with a truly commendable nonchalance and confidence as if Draco hadn't spent the better part of their acquaintance hexing them on corridors or trying to get them expelled and as if Blaise hadn't advocated the superiority of purebloods just like any of their peers. Maybe not as loud as others, but not with any less conviction. Well, as long as Mione and Ron would play along and also ignore their past, the strategy might even work.

There was a certain tenseness to their movements, though, and it caused the concern in Harry to spike uncomfortably.

"You are late." He said, because it was the first way coming to his mind to get to the bottom of their unrest without having to directly reveal the article in front of Mione and Ron if Blaise and Draco did not yet know of it. Surely they wouldn't appreciate having to learn of this newest debacle with such an audience.

As Blaise's gaze flickered from him to the folded Daily Prophet lying directly at Hermione's feet and then, with a calculating steeliness, to his friends, Harry knew however that they had already been informed about the article after all. Biting his lips he wondered whether he should tell his friends he'd see them later and discuss the situation privately with his hosts.

Surely, though, Hermione and Ron would bug him for answers later anyway and their overprotective flood of concern might even be alleviated a little bit if they got the chance to observe for themselves that the two Slytherins were not treating him badly even when his presence caused them such difficulties. But on the other hand he hated how unreadable, cold and haughty Draco and Blaise became in the presence of others and he didn't want to bring them into an uncomfortable position should they want to keep their thoughts and plans to the two – no, the three of them; because Harry would not let them keep him out of affairs that concerned him also.

"I am sorry we kept you waiting." Draco gave him a smile that was all angles and sharpness and with an uncomfortable twinge Harry noticed that the serenity that had fought its way through the polished surface of their demeanour as resilient and unrelenting as dandelion breaking through stone, had given way to the frosty, slightly aggressive, sharp-edged determination that Harry knew all too well from their years of fighting.

"No worries..." Harry began, waving the apology away. But his words were distracted at best; there was something in the blonde's steely eyes as they, too, fell onto the article laying to Hermione's feet, something he couldn't quite name but didn't like either way. As if those silver grey orbs were lakes covered with ice and frost, hiding whatever lurked beneath.

A moment later it was gone, but it was enough to convince Harry that it would be better for Hermione and Ron not to be there. The last thing he needed right now was for the fronts between them and Blaise and Draco to harden even further over something like this.

Intent on bidding the other two parts of his triumvirate goodbye for now, Harry turned back around just to halt and frown at the hard and intent expression on Ron's face as he stared at the Slytherins while he tapped with the forefinger of his right hand against a point on his unclothed left forearm. The gesture seemed oddly ominous, almost, like the bared teeth of a manticore.

Confused, Harry turned back to Draco and Blaise, wondering what was going on, especially when he saw both of the Slytherins inclining their head deliberately.  
"What?" Harry demanded, his gaze wandering between the three other men. "Since when are _you_ having silent conversations of all people?"

Knowing that his long-time friend was much easier to get information from than the snakes, Harry finally settled on following Hermione suit and turning his questioning stare back to Ron's stubborn, freckled face.

"Weasley was merely making sure we'd keep the promise we gave him earlier." Blaise answered, before Ron could and Harry raised his eyebrows critically. "Do I want to know?"

The Italian smiled, shaking his head. "Nothing we haven't already promised you."

Harry swallowed past the sudden dryness in his throat. The only promises the Slytherins had given him were that they would let him return to Hogwarts and not let anyone try and make Harry enter a mating bond if he was unwilling. God, this was embarrassing. Had his best friend really made the two man who intended to court Harry vow not to force him into, well, marriage and sex?  
Rolling his eyes, more to overcome the heat tainting his cheeks than true annoyance, Harry gave Ron a wry look that clearly meant 'I can fight my own battles'. At least the redhead seemed as embarrassed as he was, the tip of his ears camouflaging to match the flicks of fiery red hair falling over them like the skin of a chameleon.

"Whatever." Harry coughed, deciding he really didn't want to dwell on this any longer than necessary. He stood, bowing down to take up the cushion he had been resting on as his friends raised behind him also. "I'll be along in a moment, I'll just..."

"Actually," Draco said with a certain, grave quality to his voice, "we need to speak with the three of you."

Immediately the atmosphere in the room sharpened as if filled with invisible glass shards that would hurt and cut and slice if only they had but a fraction more of substance.

"I am sure you have read Miss Crane's article in the Daily Prophet today." Draco roughly gestured to the newspaper still lying on the ground next to Mione who uttered an amused "indeed" after following his gaze.

Then, to Harry's dismay, his friend cocked her head, sending the long locks of nut brown hair flying, before she said "I especially liked the part where she said how purebloods were trampling over the rights of everyone else... or was that the Mediwizard?"  
A snarky smile worthy of a Slytherin curled her lips as a bark of laughter bubbled out of Ron. She was teasing, Harry knew that, but she was also and more importantly testing the men who held the future of one of her best friends in their clawed hands.

"Mione!" Harry's voice lashed out like a whip. "Will you _please_ stop that!"

* * *

  
With a certain satisfaction Blaise watched their submissive leap to their defence. Such a fierce sense of justice, what a strong personality.

But the brunette remained rather unaffected, staying silent as she considered them attentively, neither apologizing nor pressing the point further and Blaise understood that it was a test, a test of how they reacted to the sharp critic voiced in that article. There could be no doubt that Granger would try her hardest to get Harry out of their reach should she decide that they were too traditional in their opinions on purebloods and especially on Vykélari mating.  
Secretly, though, Blaise thought with a smile, that the jibe could just as well have come from Pansy. What would Granger say if he told her that?

Next to him Draco cocked his head, cold amusement rolling off him in palpable waves and Blaise folded his hands in front of him, preparing himself for what could only become a very entertaining speech.

"Yes? Well I am rather indecisive..." The blond started, tipping one elegant finger to his chin as if he were deep in thought. "I liked how Palmer, out of all the examples of self-governed institutions she could have used, chose Hogwarts to point out where the ministry should take a more active role – especially after that went wrong so spectacularly so very recently."

Blaise smiled slightly, lowering his head to hide it. His Dragon... he had not thought Draco would go so far as to imply that he now in hindsight preferred Dumbledor's way of governing the school to the ministry's. Of course he knew that the former headmaster had made a lasting impression on Draco on his death day ... but even if that were not so, it was a rather neat strategy to use on the Gryffindor's.

"But then again," Draco continued, his voice hardening to cold steel for but a moment even though his expression remained carefully pleasant "the hypocrisy of that Mediwizard blaming us for supposedly mistreating Harry after the way they handled him in St. Mungo's is nothing less than rich. And the irresponsible attempt to set off a movement that would lead to more power being handed to the ministry directly after we saw in the Second Wizarding War that the power structures within the ministry are too open for abuse should at least keep us all in suspense for the next few weeks – or years if Crane is successful."  
For a moment, Draco was silent, nodding to himself with a tiny smile as if he was thinking of something particularly entertaining, before ending with a nonchalant shrug and a jested "well, at least we won't be bored. But, you know, I would rather stabilize the ministry first and then give it more power rather than giving it all the power and then hoping it will rule fairly, wouldn't you?"

In the following silence, Blaise was sure, one could have heard a needle falling to the ground and he almost, almost laughed at the gobsmacked expressions on both Weasley's and Harry's face.  
Gosh, their sweet submissive.  
Granger though, remained silent and thoughtful and Blaise knew that the girl would look past the slights and the sarcasm and focus on the truly important points Draco had made with deadly accuracy. She had such a witty, sharp mind, he'd have to grant her as much.  
"She said that?" Harry asked incredulously before shaking his head once and starting to glare at Draco and him again. "Wait, never mind. Will you all just stop antagonizing each other?"

But before either Blaise or Draco could answer, Granger muttered behind them. "Yes, I guess she _did_ say that. You know, I never saw it like this. Still, now with Shacklebold as the minister the situation is quite different than with Fudge or Scrimgeour. He is fair and just and will undoubtedly push through many reforms during his term that will be more than beneficial for the Wizarding World. Honestly, I think we could do worse than giving him the power to really restructure the ministry..."

Smugly, Draco raised an eyebrow at their young Vykélari as if to say _'See? I'm not antagonizing anyone...'_ and Blaise rolled his eyes, only glad that the brunette had not been affronted by Draco's complacent manner, even though he had suspected she wouldn't. The last thing they needed right now was an angry Harry blaming them for deliberately annoying his friends.

Therefore, before either Draco or the lioness on the opposite side of the mirror could derail the situation, he interfered. "In any case we didn't ask you to stay just to discuss the finer intricacies of Crane's article, only its repercussions."

Draco nodded and raised his chin with the air of someone determined to face his fate with dignity. "At least until the school term starts, you should consider moving into a safe house with your family. If you have no suitable place to stay, I could provide one. But it is not exactly a secret that you and Harry are close and now that Harry's status as a submissive is known, you might be targeted."

A sharp intake of breath tore Blaise's and Draco's gazes away from the young pair in the mirror to their submissive standing there like a statue, watching them sharply.  
"You think someone might attack my friends now?"

Blaise's gaze darted to Granger and Weasley whose postures had straightened, their expressions those of experienced soldiers told that they were the last line of defence, not allowed to retreat however powerful their enemy would prove to be. Well, at least they could commend them for their loyalty even if the situation called for more subtlety than that.

"To be honest I think that they will be relatively safe from other dominant Vykélari for the moment, since the article brought so much attention to the situation and after the war you have the public's sympathy and admiration: threatening anyone close to you will be difficult to conceal and thus, any British dominant trying to attain you as a mate using that tactic will have to brave the public's chagrin. And most foreign Vykélari will need a day or two at best to react to the article and then get the necessary information on your weaknesses, your friends. But..."

Blaise fell silent, looking asquint at his lover to take over. After all it was due to Lucius Malfoy that their parents had now become shadows in Harry's foe glass and it was only right that Draco was the one to tell him that.

"It's your family, isn't it?" Granger asked softly, her alert eyes resting on Draco.

Irritation dripped from the Slytherin Ice Prince's being at that like poison from the fang of a king cobra, less from the aggravation of the unpleasant matter with their parents than from having the muggleborn guess the truth so quickly, so unerringly and not even with a hint of accusation.

"Yes." Draco said tersely, hating how Weasley gave a curt nod as if he had never expected something else. Of course Draco hadn't either, not truly, but that was beside the point! He reigned in the biting comments threatening to spill from his tongue though; Harry surely would not react favourably.

"It seems Miss Crane's appeal to the public might influence the outcome of my father's trial in two weeks negatively." Draco administered the explanation with a detached coolness, it was either that or having the claws prickling under the nails at his fingertips ripping out of him. His fingers twitched already as it was. "Consequently our parents now wish for us to mate Harry and bring him home."

Both Blaise and Draco had steeled themselves for an explosion of some sort, for threats and anger and fury and outrage as uncontainable and grand as fiendfyre. But Weasley and Granger only stood there watching them intently and calculatingly and perhaps the redhead remembered that they had already assured him once more that they would honour the Tiwaz Vow and perhaps Granger had already deduced the nature of the promise they had mentioned in front of her earlier. Blaise wouldn't put it past her. At least they seemed to be prepared to let them declare themselves.

Harry, though, had cringed next to them and that was worse than anything the other two Gryffindors could ever have said or done. It caused Blaise's stomach to churn uncomfortably and a wave of bitterness to drench Draco. Merlin, why did their parents have to destroy everything?

"We told them that we wouldn't." Draco asserted forcefully, eyes ablaze, and the anger over the need to even voice that reassurance made his voice tight.

Blinking once, twice, Harry tilted his head, frowning at them as if he doubted their intelligence. "I know!"  
Then his stance softened and his left hand flew to his right to again start to torture his knuckles. His eyes broke away and he shrugged with one shoulder only, the very image of chagrin. Blaise was sure those feathers in his hair would have flattened the untameable raven mass down against his skull, had they been visible then and there.

"I never thought this could reflect on you like this. I'm sorry." he said and Blaise felt his shoulders relax, a flash of relief and golden warmth pulsing through his chest like the song of a phoenix. Harry wasn't afraid of them, no, even better: as ridiculous as the idea was, their sweet nightingale was indeed regretting that they were falling into disrepute because they had _abducted_ him.  
Honestly, Blaise couldn't fathom why the brunet would ever feel that way or even how he could defend that unconceivable notion in his own head, he only knew that it was somehow typical, typical Harry.  
Which meant that yes, Weasley was right, and Harry needed to be protected from himself the most. He was powerful, one of the best duellists Blaise had ever seen and intelligent as well, but he didn't know when selfishness was called for.

"If you need me to do something about the article… I could help, you know?"  
'Quod erat demonstrandum' Blaise thought with an exasperated sigh.

Suddenly the fire was back in the leaf green eyes, in his posture and the way he carried himself and Harry looked up and crossed his arms, stubbornly and defiantly staring at them. "I won't witness for your father or…"

Draco shook his head. "You do not need to do anything at all."

But he wanted to. It was evident in the way the muscles in his jaw tightened, while those expressive iridescent eyes of his flickered away in annoyance at being brushed off. And Blaise couldn't stand it. Not when his own mother desired him to be nothing more than a lovesick, whipped, hand tame gosling blinking adoringly up at them from the ground at Blaise's and Draco's feet, not when she, Narcissa and Lucius wanted him mindlessly and helplessly bound to their families, a vessel of light and power blinding everyone else to conceal their deficiencies and allow them to strive for even more power unnoticed. And Blaise and Draco would be nothing more than the leashes to bind the submissive with, their parents' tools.

It was not to be borne.

"Harry," Blaise murmured softly as he stepped in front of the submissive to cup his cheek, ignoring the annoyed coughing of Weasley behind him, confident that if Harry's friends wanted to interfere, Draco wouldn't let them. Who the hell cared if they found the gesture too intimate, inappropriate? As long as the colibrí turned his head just so into the hollow of his hand, almost leaning into the touch, as long as it got those emeralds to _see_ him, as long as he could make him understand…

"You have done enough already for people that wronged you so grievously, still want to. I don't think you quite understand just how much: Lucius wants us to subdue you and parade you around like a marionette – not even a trophy husband but a puppet without will. And Narcissa, she claims to have something to hold over your head, something that will give them absolute power over you, and she will use it without second thought… I will not even speak of what my mother would be prepared to do to entrap you hopelessly."

Quite frankly, Blaise felt a bit vengeful after Lucius had hurt his Dragon, after Amalyne had held her derogatory speech about Harry.  
"I do not want you to do _anything_ for them."

Throughout the spiteful words, Blaise kept stroking with his thumb over Harry's cheekbone, his little finger resting just behind the pulse point at the tan column of flesh and sinews, still feeling the echo of the angry beat – Or was that his own? – wondering if the younger Vykélari understood that he was prepared to be just as cruel and ruthless and devious if Harry needed him to be, if Draco needed him to be.

And Harry looked at him and for the first time since that night in the hospital, there was that certain, cruel realisation carved into the very flesh and skin of his face. For the very first time, Blaise believed that their nightingale truly comprehended the nature of his situation. He wasn't sure though if he found it desirable or regrettable.

"But they are your parents."

"Yes," Draco said from where he stood close to Blaise's left shoulder, his voice deceptively soft and gentle, the weight of his hand coming to rest heavily on the Italian's forearm, in a subtle restrictive gesture. "And maybe, when this all is over, they will see that they were wrong."

Immediately Blaise knew he had overstepped boundaries that shouldn't even have been approached. Not only had he, in his anger, revealed much more than he should have in front of Granger and Weasley who might repeat his words to a certain journalist in the worst case, no he had also put his lover and fiancé, his Dragon, into a very tight spot. Because helping his own parents now without losing face in front of Harry or Harry's friends would be difficult at best and Blaise had known that Draco didn't want to condemn Lucius to his fate, didn't want to sever the ties of blood between his parents and him and throw them to the wolves. And though Blaise couldn't care less after the words Lucius had thrown at Draco earlier in a fit of rage, whether the Malfoy patriarch had meant them or not, it wasn't his decision to abandon the man.

Therefore, Blaise stepped back from their submissive, searching forgiveness from his fiancé with nothing more than a quick glance, relieved that it was granted with a curt nod and a reassuring squeeze to his forearm.  
"In any case you should stay as far away from the three of them as possible for now." Blaise said to Harry's Gryffindors, hoping to distract them from his earlier words. "Preferably in a safe house. Also, some of my Italian Vykélari relatives were at Draco's and my Engagement Party and they might still be in Britain. They won't be held back by the fear of angering the local wizards."

"My father and brothers can't just stop going to work." Weasley said matter-of-factly.

"I can't force you of course." Draco conceded, albeit with a certain tenseness to his voice. "But it would be best if at least the two of you and your sister, Jenny..."

"Ginny!"

"Yes, Ginny, I'm sorry." Blaise smiled inwardly as not even he could detect a hint of sarcasm in Draco's voice. "At least the three of you should consider going into hiding until Hogwarts reopens."

Harry rubbed his forehead tiredly. "You really think this is necessary? I mean why would someone attack my friends if they can't blackmail me with it? And how would anyone be able to blackmail me when they can't contact me? Nobody knows where we are; I mean that is why you brought me here in the first place, isn't it?"

"As long as we do not know who might have read your letter, Harry, we can't be sure about that."

Guiltily Harry bit his lips, regret pulsing from him in dark, ominous waves and Blaise wished Draco hadn't worded it like this, because there was nothing as unbearable to Harry as endangering his friends and now, the letter he had written in a moment of improvidence was doing just that and it wasn't as if their submissive needed or deserved to be reminded of his mistake.

Coming to the same conclusion, Draco narrowed his eyes, clicked his tongue and raised his chin in obviously feigned haughtiness, intent on providing some distraction in the only way he knew how with these three. "I know the concept is probably difficult to grasp for you Gryffindorks, but it is better to be safe than sorry."

"Says the guy who strutted up to a Hippogryph, unarmed, and refused to bow." Granger quipped, rolling her eyes.

Draco waved the comment away with a sniff and a sharp head movement. "I was thirteen. And I learned my lesson."

Weasley smirked at them sharply like the carnivore that he was. "Yeah, well, but not that it sometimes can be better to face your enemies head-on. Understandable of course, I know that this concept has to be impossible to grasp for a snake."

Blaise shrugged unperturbed. "But it generally saves especially human resources to use more sly tactics then a direct onset. 'He will be victorious, who prepared himself to strike at his unprepared enemy'(1)."

"Where's the honour in that?"

"Where's the honour in losing?" Draco asked back.

"Of course a Slytherin would say something like that."

"Guys!" Harry called out in helpless exasperation. "Could you please just try to get along? Or _pretend_ to?"

A little bit embarrassed, Weasley shrugged apologetically; but the two Slytherins remained silent and smug, after all they had achieved what they wanted: there was no hint of the earlier, foul dejection marring Harry's features now, even though he still looked more mature and serious than suited him.

"Anyway" The brunet continued, raking a hand through his raven locks until they looked like something a blackbird might try to nest in. "Could you two and Ginny maybe at least not go anywhere alone and ... you know, the usual safety precautions against portkeys in letters and all that stuff. I'd really feel better if you..."

"Fine," Granger sighed, adjusting her stance. "You know my parents are still in Australia, in the Muggleworld – I sent them there for the duration of the war and I've only just gotten back in touch with them" She added with a quick glance towards Blaise and Draco.  
"We'll talk with Molly and Arthur first, of course, but we could go there. Though it will take me a few days, two at least to get the necessary portkeys."

A bit of the tenseness that Blaise had felt piercing his body during the last two hours faded away gently like spears turned to nothingness. Granger, Weasley and that girl that had been so close to binding their Harry to her would be safe and as such, Harry would be, too. Because, while the Boy-Who-Lived had an undeniable hero complex and would never leave a friend in danger, there were only a few people that Blaise knew had that kind of value that would make Harry rush into danger for them mindlessly, thoughtlessly, unable to see reason.

Only a few days more, a few days until the three Gryffindors would safely be leaving Britain.  



	21. A Dream Within A Dream

After bidding Hermione and Ron goodbye, Blaise and Draco had ushered him into his study so that Ives could keep him company while they made some preparations for the date they still wanted to take him on; of course with the two emergency portkeys as a safety insurance, their comforting weight resting around Draco's and Harry's wrists.

The Gryffindor hadn't confessed to his hosts that he had no intention of using the one Blaise had gifted him with; because, with one portkey short, the dark Italian would not be able to escape danger if it somehow found them and Harry had never left anyone behind to save his own hide and he was not going to start now. But the Slytherins didn't need to know that, did they? Otherwise they'd surely reconsider their plans and Harry found himself rather looking forward to wherever they wanted to take him. Besides, he had an idea that Draco didn't plan on using his own portkey either and abandon his fiancé. As a result, one could say that the emergency portkeys were for appearances' sake only.

As he stepped into the study, his mind was still in some kind of upheaval with different and violently conflicting thoughts and emotions twirling in a maelstrom of enormous proportions, gyrating towards a single realisation that he couldn't quite see and decipher yet.

_Lucius Malfoy was a cold, selfish, calculating bastard._  
That was the undeniable truth that Harry had understood even at the tender age of twelve. So, it wasn't as if he had ever expected the man to behave any differently now, knowing very well that he held no ounce of his admiration or respect. At least the feeling was mutual.

_But Draco loved him nonetheless._  
Harry remembered all too well how very upset his former enemy had been at the end of their fifth year after his father's imprisonment. And though admitting it was quite a bit unsettling, Harry couldn't deny that he didn't want those silver eyes to lose the same fondness, desire and intense burning that brightened them now when he looked at Harry.

_Despite whatever Draco thought, though, Lucius really deserved to atone for everything he had done._  
Even though he had never taken an active role in the Second Wizarding War or the events leading up to it aside from the one incident in the Ministry of Magic that had led to his imprisonment. And Harry knew that the Death Eaters that day hadn't been as vicious, as deadly as they could have been towards a few children, otherwise, frankly, they all would have been killed. But that might have been because Voldemort didn't want Harry to be murdered by anyone but him, and for the sake of keeping the prophecy safe and whole. In any case the fact remained that Lucius Malfoy had escaped justice far too many times.

_And Blaise and Draco didn't want him to help their parents anyway._  
Being brushed off like that might have angered Harry a bit if Blaise hadn't been so damn mad at his mother and Draco's parents on Harry's behalf. His cold-blooded ranting, the steeliness in his dark eyes had chilled Harry to the core, forcing the awareness on him that the intensity of the Italian's righteous anger gave evidence to feelings much deeper and serious than Harry would have thought them to be. When the hell had that happened?  
Wasn't it cruel to continue letting them court him when they invested so much of themselves, more than Harry was? They were defying their parents for him and god ... Harry felt like a wedge driven between the two generations of Zabinis and Malfoys, with both parties hammering him deeper into the rift between them by turns. Maybe he should remove himself before the wounds he inflicted on those families festered and scarred beyond healing.

_But Narcissa wouldn't let him. She had taken what Harry did for her with the gracefulness and the shining smile of an angel, only to throw it to the ground and quash it beneath her feet._  
That betrayal hurt even though Harry was dimly aware that it shouldn't have been so much of a surprise, after all he had known that the proud woman had not saved his life for his sake but because she had understood that Harry was the only one who might stand a chance to kill Voldemort and with him the master who no longer looked favourably on her family, who had punished Lucius by giving his son a task he couldn't hope to succeed in, couldn’t hope to survive. If Lucius hadn't disappointed his lordship before and incurred his wrath, Narcissa would not have lied for Harry, would have alerted the Dark Lord that the Boy-Who-Lived had lived again. And yet Harry had entertained the illusion that the Malfoy matriarch had enough respect for him now to refrain from backstabbing. Obviously not.

_But Draco and Blaise were willing to protect Harry from her; moreover they were willing to protect even his friends from her and everyone else._  
Of course they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but that they were going to such lengths when Harry knew how much it must irk them, what with all the bad blood between the Malfoys and Weasleys ... perhaps that was a symbol even more significant than an action based on noble morals.

_And Harry didn’t want to leave…_

All of these jarred emotions left Harry adrift in the centre of the maelstrom of his own making, with Blaise and Draco there with him...  
The only possible conclusion was present as well, but Harry wasn't sure if he wanted to face it yet.

"Harry?"

Ives soft voice pierced him like lightning and he raised his gaze to the painting of the rose garden with the other submissive in it a bit guiltily, wondering how long he had stood there in silence staring into space.

But Ives wasn't alone.

Next to him, painted with fine, delicate brushes stood the somewhat sinister figure of a man swathed in black, a foreign invader completely out of place amongst the greenery and the Nostalgia roses, even with the red haired submissive nestled into his side, held there with one arm, as if it was the only place Ives had any right to be in. A waterfall of white-golden silk cascaded down his back, vanishing behind the man's shoulders and his confident blue eyes held a ruthless sparkle as he regarded Harry, reminding him uncomfortably of a goshawk, a predator, a killer who was as effective, fast and merciless as he was intelligent; but not necessarily evil. Just hungry.

"May I introduce my husband to you: Adler, Adler Malfoy."

Honestly, Harry hadn't known what to expect after what Ives had told him of the man who had used Ives’ plight, whatever it had been, to earn his hand in marriage, who had given him an 'offer he couldn't reject' for that reason and that reason alone but who supposedly loved him at the same time...

But just as Ives had refused to yield to any expectations Harry might have had on him, so did Adler – the cold, calculative raptor standing there next to his so congenial husband with one arm wrapped around his slim waist like a vice, as if he wanted to stake a claim on the redhead. Harry just... well, they just seemed so _wrong_ together, such a contradictory couple: warm and open versus cold and secretive, colourful and approachable versus black and pristine.

Harry couldn't really say that he liked Adler. He couldn't honestly claim to dislike him either; the man was just ... honestly, he just seemed to lack any emotions one could abhor or admire him for and Harry found himself oddly glad that he had never encountered the man in life-size outside of a painting.

"A pleasure, Mr Potter, to finally be able to make your acquaintance." The man said smoothly, with just enough inflection to not sound bored.

"Likewise, Mr Malfoy." Harry replied cautiously even though he would rather have been speaking alone with Ives who he had come to like in the little time they had known each other.

The older man didn't seem fazed at all by Harry's reticence, and he seemed almost close to a smirk for a few moments before he shifted his stance, his robe swirling around him like a living entity made of shadows, and spoke again. "I must say I was rather looking forward to meeting you, the praised Saviour of the Wizarding World, since I have heard so much of you in the last few years and Ives seems quite taken with you already."  
And with that he looked down at his husband, eyes softening like melting steel, stroking a knuckle over his cheek in a soft caress before turning to Harry again, all polite, neutral interest once more.

For some reason the comment rubbed Harry the wrong way, or perhaps it was just the manner in which it was delivered and the way the blonde's eyes seemed to dissect him while he spoke as if he was testing him.  
Harry raised his chin stubbornly. "It must be disappointing to expect to meet a hero and find out he is human after all."

A short, quiet laugh fell from Adler's lips, as polite and insignificant as all his comments so far seemed to be. "Not at all, Mr Potter. I am not so naive as to expect to find a truly heroic being with otherworldly powers and inhuman beauty anywhere in this world. But many here in Britain seem to think that you came close and I found myself rather anticipating our meeting, though of course it will be sadly shortened now since my descendant and his fiancé are intent on showing you the beauty of Italy."

"Adler!" Ives gasped and grasped his husband's forearm tightly, but Harry kept his eyes focused on the shrewd, black clad man, thinking – incorrectly – that the other submissive was merely appalled at Adler's ambiguous words. He didn't see the small drop of dark, light-suffused liquid that a House Elf hiding behind him was very slowly levitating closer to his eye in the very far periphery of his field of vision where sight was blurred and hazy and more focused on detecting quick movements than visual details, because as sharp as a Vykélari's eyes are, even they have their limits.

For his part, Harry couldn't help but stare at the painting with his eyes widened a bit and his brows raised incredulously, trying to decide whether he had just been insulted or not. After all one could interpret Adler's word such that he himself didn't think Harry close to the vision of the typical hero; but that wasn't necessarily a slight.

A moment later Harry startled, whipped his head to the side, only a fracture of a second too late, clenching his eyes shut as something dark and hard flew right into his eye.

Damn, but that smarted.

"Harry? Are you alright?" Ives voice was tight with concern and something else, something akin to anger, though Harry couldn't by any stretch of imagination understand why the redhead would feel that way when nothing substantial had happened that could warrant that reaction.

"Yeah..." Harry mumbled, "just a fly or something."  
Carefully he rubbed at his watering eyes but whatever it was, was gone now, probably washed away by the tear fluid. After a few moments he blinked the wetness away, glad that the irritation of his eye receded quickly.

"I'm fine."

As he straightened himself, Harry was a bit surprised to find the painted, colourful figure of Ives now standing a good portion away from his solemn, sombre husband, fiercely glaring at Adler, who still maintained that air of polite superiority that Harry found so aggravating.

"Wonderful." Adler murmured softly and Harry had the uncomfortable feeling that this had nothing to do with his well-being.

Well, and thus it happened that Harry met Adler Malfoy, on whom he still hadn't been able to form a concrete opinion when Draco and Blaise came to fetch him fifteen minutes later. The man was just too ambiguous.

Unswervingly he continued to enwrap Harry in seemingly meaningless conversation that made his thoughts spin and his mind run in circles, trying to work out what undoubtedly important and incriminating information Harry must be revealing with his words. The fact that the younger submissive was giving him not much more than one syllable answers didn’t seemed to bother Adler at all.

Harry would probably have made more of an effort to be polite, if Ives hadn't been looking at the other man with barely contained fury simmering under his skin and in his lively blue eyes. It was unsettling and confusing and Harry would have liked to ask what this was all about but didn’t wanted to meddle into the clearly private affairs of a married couple.

It was therefore understandable that Harry was all too relieved to follow Blaise and Draco out of the study and together they made their way to the Manor's forefront. The sight that greeted them there immediately erased the uncomfortable conversation from Harry’s mind without a trace.

* * *

  
Harry hadn't been on the front side of the large villa before, only ever visiting the garden and even during his flying lessons they had flown towards the shore and the sea and on his way back he hadn't paid much attention to the ground, keeping his eyes on the wonderful scenery in the distance, the far mountains half veiled by haze and dust in the air that made their outlines blur with the feint blue sky. And on Draco, who had waited for him and Blaise on the rooftop garden.  
Seeing it now – if Harry had only the slightest interest in architecture and if he hadn't been distracted by what stood on the circular drive leading away from the Manor's entrance, he might have been impressed.

The villa's forefront looked older and more _grand_ than Harry had expected, even if it was nowhere near as pompous and palatial as many of the manors in Britain, more inviting and homely. Warm.

No extravagant ornaments adorned the façade, no stuccowork, but the windows were tall and some of them rounded and there was a long side porch to the left of the Manor's entrance with a row of wooden pillars partly obscuring the slender chairs situated there.

The circular drive was covered with pale gravel that glowed in the early midmorning sun and lead away from the manor as a white ribbon flowing over the green park that was much more orderly than the garden behind the manor with its neat, geometric flower beds and artfully cut hedges.

Harry preferred the other garden: this one clearly was meant to impress, not to be enjoyed which in his opinion destroyed the purpose of even having a garden in the first place. Well, that is, if one wasn't as narrow-minded and bored half to death as his aunt Petunia and had inferiority complexes to appease by overtrumping one's neighbours in something as inconsequential as gardening.

And if there was one thing his Slytherin hosts didn't suffer from, then it was inferiority complexes.

Whatever.

Harry's gaze was quickly caught by the three chariots lining up on the driveway, the polished, dark wood of the semicircular guard in the front shining and gleaming even though the driveway was swathed in a huge shadow thrown by the manor behind them.  
Each chariot was large enough for three, maybe even four grown man if they stood closely together and from the look of it, they were not meant to stay on the ground for long: three, pearly white horses were harnessed to the chariots, one to each vehicle, occasionally rearing their proud heads, sending the white, thick strands of hair flying in the soft breeze.

Their most outstanding feature though, were the lean, wide wings that sprouted from their muscular backs, longer than Harry's own were – or Blaise's and Draco's for that matter. The flight feathers were long and glossy and bled into a steely silver at the tips but the coverts were downy and soft looking and as white as freshly fallen snow.

Four wizards and two witches stood close to the tall beasts, calming hands stroking and petting at their sides, keeping them steady and the obviously wild temperaments in check. It didn't completely work as the animals kept fluttering slightly, sweeping away a bit of the gravel covering the driveway so neatly and swirling up dust from the overly dry ground.

But the group didn't seem bothered by the wilful demeanour of their charges. With their fingers intertwined with the harnesses they looked up to Blaise, Harry and Draco as they descended the stairs, all dark, keen eyes, and wide rough smiles splitting angular faces that bore a strong enough resemblance for them to be related in some way or another. The youngest, a teenager who couldn't be older than fourteen, maybe fifteen, waved an enthusiastic greeting towards them which Blaise and Draco returned, albeit a bit more reserved.

Absentmindedly Harry noticed their open expression and unguarded stances and that all of them wore their wands in closed holsters at their hips; a safe place with no danger of the precious tools being lost and easily accessible at the same time but not quickly. It was unlikely that they meant them ill.

Some tight knot in Harry's stomach released at that observation and his shoulders were able to release their tension. He nodded a greeting to the six Italians and refocused his attention to the winged horses, allowing himself to enjoy the view of the beautiful animals. Maybe he should have expected something like this, Harry thought with a fond eye roll and a gentle, slow grin, especially after discovering the Pegasus water mark on Blaise's letter paper, but really...

"Are you _serious_?" He asked, his voice humming with a gradually blossoming, incredulous excitement. Where had they gotten these creatures from on such short notice?

"Do you like them?" Blaise smiled widely at him, already knowing the answer.

"Are you kidding? They are like Hippogryphs without the vicious beak." Harry said teasingly, because Hermione had reminded him of that incident with Buckbeak in their third year again and he honestly suspected that the missing, deadly weapon was the only reason the two Slytherins allowed those horses close to them in the first place.

Draco's smirk narrowed a bit as he mock-glared at Harry "Yes, well... Pihassan like these three would have been a more appropriate study subject for third year students."

"Yeah, probably..." sheepishly Harry scratched the back of his neck. Hagrid undeniably had an unhealthy affinity to dangerous things and maybe it would have been better not to urge a group of hormonal teenagers already suffering from a chronic lack of emotional control to mingle with a herd of haughty, prideful beasts with an inclination to easily take offence.  
But they had been amazing nonetheless and Buckbeak had gifted Sirius with two more years of life and for that alone Harry would always love Hippogryphs.

"... So. Pihassan?"

Blaise nodded and gestured towards the oldest two wizards, a man and woman who were probably in their late forties and – Harry would bet – the parents of the lively boy. "Yes. But I think Velia and Tore have been dying to get a helpless victim to bore to death with their knowledge and who am I to deny them?"

Before Harry could take another step, however, Draco grasped his shoulder, making the Gryffindor halt and face him, his questioning gaze encountering grave pools of silver.  
"Don't worry about the Battellis accompanying us for a bit today." He murmured too lowly for anyone but Blaise and Harry to hear and there was a strangely urgent, insistent tinge to his soft timbre and in the expression of his eyes "They are trustworthy and they have sworn wizard oaths not to tell on us. Trust us to keep you safe today?"

Harry cocked his head, wanting to insist that he didn't need anyone to keep himself safe, because mostly it was true that he didn't. But being able to complete a task alone didn't mean that one necessarily should or that it was the intelligent thing to do. He'd stay alert, of course – sometimes Harry thought he'd never again be able to not keep an eye out for any eventuality – but Blaise and Draco were familiar with the region and the people and if they really wanted to be in charge of their safety, of his, if it was so important to them that he trust them both with this task, Harry could let them.  
"Okay."

Seeing the genuine smiles that lit Draco's pale and Blaise's dark skinned face told him he had done the right thing and somehow that made a totally unnecessary warmth spread in his stomach and probably his cheeks as Blaise steered him towards the chariots and the six Italians – the Battelis – waiting there.

It was not a completely new experience but it had been rare enough during the last few years to still be surprising: none of the newcomers even took a second look at his scar while they shook his hands with sure, firm grips and introduced themselves to him in that typical melodic lilt that Blaise only adopted when he was tired or angry and maybe when he was otherwise ... impassioned (and god, that thought made Harry freeze for a moment).  
Whether they did not recognize him or had been told not to make a fuss about his identity or whether they just didn't care, Harry didn't know; but it made him feel oddly welcome and normal and warm.

And the little lecture didn't turn out to be as bad as Harry feared it would, especially since Tore proved to be an avid storyteller and Harry loved listening to his strong Italian accent and deep rumbling voice. After not even 10 minutes he knew that Pihassan horses, cousins of the much larger Abraxan breed, belonged to the fastest winged horses in existence and that their name meant 'lightning' (here, Draco winked at him roguishly, earning him a not-so-gentle cuff on the upper arm); he learned that they didn't breed in captivity but would stay loyal to the single human that had captured and tamed them to such an extent that they could be released into freedom again, even start their own herds and nonetheless come whenever called or when their human companion was in danger. That was the reason, Blaise told him, why he himself didn't possess one. He couldn't stay at one place long enough to shoulder the responsibility that came with the bond between a Pihassan horse and its rider.

"But they will allow us to ride in their chariots if their riders give their permission, of course. And they will bring us to our first destination today."

"Which...?" Harry prompted.

"Which you'll see when we get there." Draco murmured close to his ears, making the hairs on Harry's neck raise. "And on the way there we are going to play pugna aerea – aerial combat – and since you are already experienced in warfare, I expect us to win, Harry."

Later, Harry would remember the blonde Slytherin Prince proclaiming their supposedly certain victory with a soft laugh, because in the end they didn't win. Not that Harry had been overly surprised.

* * *

  
Pugna aerea was played in groups of three, as Draco explained to him once they had climbed into their chariot: a charioteer steering the Pihassan horse, a scorer who was allowed to attack the players of the other teams with slowing charms that worked for about a minute and the shielder who could throw up shields with a diameter of about two feet to defend their teammates and horse – which the Battellis apparently counted to their teammates, something Harry only noticed when Tore had slowed down their horse that Harry had left unprotected and he turned to Blaise with an incredulous "can he do that?". After that Draco had switched places with him, making Harry the scorer while taking over the position of shielder. Not that that was necessarily fair but since Harry did enjoy the position of scorer more, he wasn't about to complain.

To ensure that no illicit use of other charms took place, the game was played with specialised fake wands that were only able to produce the type of charm the players were allowed to perform – a good precaution in Harry's opinion since he knew his Slytherins, and the team of the younger Battellis didn't seem above using dirty tricks either. Besides, he still didn't have his own wand and the missing presence of his holly and phoenix feather wand was a constant nagging in the back of his mind.

There were three basic means by which a team could score points: being the first to arrive at the previously agreed goal was worth 80 points. Hitting members of the opposing teams brought 5 points per hit.  
But the one method that made this game so enjoyable and exciting was catching the ring fastened to a 10 metres long rope hanging from each chariot, which earned the team 20 points. Once an opposing team had snatched away the ring, it was magically replaced by another up to ten times. If a team lost all its rings, it had automatically lost the game.

Right now, Harry, Blaise and Draco were attempting exactly such a move.

Skillfully, Blaise had steered their chariot closer to the one carrying the twins Alessa and Abele and the young teenager Piero (the third vehicle was crewed by Tore, Velia and her younger brother Savio and they were still trying to catch up after being slowed down), little by little reducing the distance between them and that red metallic ring swinging there so tauntingly out of reach a little above them. It was a most difficult endeavour since Alessa pressed their own Pihassan to fly in a soft slalom of uncoordinated left and rights, up and downs and it caused the ring to flutter about, swerving and careening so hard and quick that it was nigh impossible to catch and furthermore a weapon of its own: Once or twice the metal ring hurtled past Harry's or Draco's head only missing them by inches as they ducked out of its path but even so, it kept evading their grabbing hands.

At the same time Piero fired one slowing charm after the other at them, which so far Draco had miraculously managed to ward off and Harry was trying his hardest to distract him with charms of his own but Abele was quick in his defence and the siblings were obviously a well attuned team so that not even the fairly random movements of the chariot managed to throw them off balance.  
Of course the sticking charms on the ground of the chariot made sure that the players would not fall off, but moving with the rolling of the vehicle was still a precarious balancing act that Harry found by far more difficult than controlling a broom.

Harry drew his brow together in concentration, his attention zeroing in on the shining, metallic red ring as it once again swerved from left to right, the single minded vision of having it in his hand filling his mind until it was all there was left to think about.

‘Take it!’

Just like the snitch when it was only a few meters away…

A yellowish light, a slowing charm, shot past Blaise in front of him who had leaned away just quickly enough to evade it, but Harry hadn't seen it coming, being hidden behind the taller Italian. Before he could even take notice of the charm, Harry heard Draco snarl to his left and a shimmering disk of what looked like ice appeared in front of him, shattering into thousands of crystalline shards as it absorbed the slowing spell.  
For a quick moment he almost had to close his eyes against the melting splinters, looking aside and into Draco’s gleaming pools of silver, flashing with the illogical, unreasonable outrage over the fact that the submissive next to him was being attacked but Harry was refocusing his gaze again, following the quickly retreating ring. It was almost past him but if he stretched just a little bit more ... just a bit– and god, it was frustrating to be unable to follow without the degrees of freedom that a broom offered, being literally glued to the chariot.

He didn't know how he had managed it, according to Blaise it should have been impossible, but the next thing Harry knew was that he had overcome the sticking charms, had left the ground of their vehicle and jumped into the air. His fingers touched the smooth, cold surface, closing around the ring and he ripped his prize straight off the rope before gravity and the loss of momentum could catch up with him. Then, as the chariots and their passengers were propelled forward from the force of the Pihassan’s powerful flaps without him, Harry felt his stomach lurch and his heart skip a beat, already seeing himself falling. The knowledge that he theoretically had wings now hadn't had the chance to be engraved into his mind deeply enough to remember it in that split of a second when he was frozen in shock.

But before their Pihassan could literally pull the chariot out from under him, Draco's arms wrapped around his waist like a vice and Harry found himself pulled back against a solid chest and onto the smooth surface of the chariot, the sticking charms once again latching onto him.

For a moment there was nothing to be heard but the constant rushing of the wind around them and Harry noticed that both the other team and Blaise and Draco had been shocked into silence, regarding him with wide-eyed surprise and a touch of alarm.

Emotions mirrored within Harry himself. But it was a combination of feelings under which he had learned to still function, his body and mind operating at full stretch and so he used the moment of general stupor to his advantage as he whipped his fake wand into the direction of the other team’s players, managing to slow down first their opponent's Pihassan and then their shielder Abele before Piero could even react and attack again. But Harry had already managed to make them slow and defenceless, leaving them open for another ring-theft.

Blaise laughed as he worked on bringing the chariot closer to the newly appeared ring again, the sound merry and proud and challenging. "That's my colibrí!"

And the feeling of success and the surge of elation flushing through his belly in a storm of butterflies and into his cheeks was heady and great and wonderful until for a moment Harry thought that his magic might rush out of him and act on its own accord. But he was still aware of it, the powerful entity within him still entirely separate from the dominants next to him and he was still lucid and awake and his magic was just there, complacent to be with him instead of trying to mess with his thoughts and emotions and that was okay, that was alright and good.

It made him not care as Draco grumbled "Fine, just stay on the chariot, mon verdier!" Instead he grinned and shrugged the Slytherin's protectiveness away, the new ring that was dangling just a few feet away already his main focus.

* * *

  
That had been the first ring Harry had caught that day and by far not the last. Blaise, Draco and Harry had, in fact, been leading when Piero managed to slow down their horse and their team scored the 80 points from arriving first at the goal, points that lead to their victory.

Of course Blaise assured Harry that their own defeat had nothing to do with Blaise's skill as a charioteer, it was just that the other two teams were at an advantage since their Pihassan horses were actually bonded to their charioteers and therefore more inclined to give their best (which somehow morphed into the allegation that their horse had been influenced by its bonded rider, Velia). And Draco proclaimed with a haughtily raised chin that the winning team must have cheated. He had smirked widely though, while he spoke those mock accusations, his eyes sparkling as the younger generation of Battellis laughed and teased them, blaring their victory into the blue sky.

In Harry's humble opinion, putting six experienced players against three with a lot less practice, one of them never having even played before, might have been just a bit unfair.

But he hadn't had so much fun since before the war. Longer, perhaps. Harry honestly couldn't quite recall the last incident. In any case, he hadn't felt so carefree and elated for such a painfully long time that it was like being high on endorphins.

And seeing Piero's exuberant joy at having won would be worth quite a few losses. That and the Slytherin's excuses had been growing much more colourful and, well, absurd (and therefore entertaining) by the minute.

It didn't really matter now, though, especially not when Harry started noticing that the three chariots were moving steadily upwards in wide circles and not down, just like large birds of prey soaring higher into the sky, riding the wind.

Soon, the valley nestled between two spurs of the Apennine Range above which their race had ended, faded into oddly wrinkly looking foothills that were gradually taking on the appearance of a model landscape: the treetops covered the ground like coloured cotton balls and the fields to the west extended to the ocean without any interruption, a patchwork quilt of yellows, browns and greens.

It was a breath-taking view with the blue sea blurring into the far horizon and the mountain range to the other side, the sun painting short shadows onto the surreal looking scenery in between; and Harry realised that this was the first time since that mad flight in Mr Weasley’s Ford Anglia that he was able to enjoy the feeling of floating above the world, escaping all of his mundane problems for a little bit – the dragon and the thestrals didn’t count for obvious reasons.

That feeling only lasted until the Slytherins informed him why they were currently flying circles in such a height…

"You want me to jump?" Harry repeated incredulously, wishing he could actually look into Blaise’s or Draco’s face to gauge their sincerity, but he was honestly too busy staring over the edge of their chariot at over three kilometres of thin air and a shockingly solid ground.

His breath froze in the cold air around him, small fleeting clouds that were immediately blown away by the breeze ruffling through his hair. The visual proof of the temperature was a disillusioning contrast to the warming charms around his body.

Because apparently the air was just below the freezing mark at a height of 10.000 feet and though Harry had never been afraid of heights – he was a seeker after all, and not really a bad one either – taking a three kilometre jump was something else entirely. Damn it, that was higher than the highest point of the mountain range to his right.

Soft fingers touched his shoulder, closing around it and making Harry turn to face Draco with his pale skin and intense eyes, the airflow playing with the blond fine hair as they kept on drawing their circles.  
Harry couldn’t but wet his lips and for some reason that made Draco’s smirk turn wider, his gaze more penetrating and invading and – by Merlin, that mad snake really wanted to jump down there. Harry glanced back down to the ground over three kilometres away, then back to Draco. They were utterly insane.

"Yes. In a manner of speaking." Draco agreed over the rushing wind and Harry gave a strangled groan, partly because it seemed like an answer to his thoughts, but he nodded nonetheless, because, well, had he ever shied away from something that held the promise of dangerous exhilaration and extreme daring that bordered on stupidity?

And with Draco standing so close to him and all of them so close to the edge of the chariot, nobody could expect him to actually think rationally. It should be enough that Harry managed to take a second to realise that it wasn’t his magic that made his stomach feel as if he was already falling. But there was no compulsion fogging his mind, no tingling of magical sparkles travelling along his nerve fibres to sear him.

He only hoped Draco and Blaise would attribute his red cheeks to either the heat of the warming charms or the cold of the air.

"Don’t worry." Blaise murmured, tying the reins of the slowly circling Pihassan to a knob at the front of the chariot. "You’ll wear a charm that will slow your fall to a halt if you touch it. You’d need to activate it after about 35 seconds. That gives you another kilometre to slow down."

Slowly the dark skinned Italian turned around, an oddly neutral expression fixed on his face but just like a filigree masquerade mask, it didn’t manage to hide what lied beneath: a kind of hopeful anticipation that lit his eyes from dark chocolate to honey amber, softening his angular face.   
"But we were wondering if you would like to dive with one of us, actually. To see how a Vykélari would do it?"

Images exploded in Harry’s mind. Visions of falling, of cutting vertically through the thin air, pressed to Blaise’s body or Draco’s, back to chest or possibly facing each other as they plummeted. Staring down at the treetops and fields while the ground would rush towards them and if he reached out with his magic, he could actually align their sensations, feel as his partner’s wings strained against the force of the air friction, as they opened slightly, moving them into a horizontal position to pull out of the dive.

It would probably be too dangerous to try that for himself – he had only flown once before – but yesterday he had thought of diving, imagined it… true, mostly he had thought that he could use it as a means to escape the wards but it was also something he had wished to do just for the experience of it. Ever since he had seen Krum perform that perfect example of a Wronski Feint, Harry had been fascinated with dives.

A wide grin budded and blossomed on his face as his resolve hardened. "Well then: with whom?"

And from the way Draco rolled his eyes in annoyance while Blaise smirked complacently, Harry knew his two hosts had already agreed on that matter in case he said yes. Amusement rolled through him in waves as the blonde Slytherin grumbled something that suspiciously sounded like "cheater".

A few minutes later Blaise flew Velia over to their chariot so that the Battellis could take the three vehicles back to their estate somewhere in the north from their current position and leave Draco, Blaise and Harry alone for the rest of their date.

Meanwhile Draco placed a belt around Harry’s hip that contained a touch activated slowing charm in the buckle and he told Harry how to position himself during the fall and showed him how to let his magic conjure up a transparent membrane to protect his eyes from the wind and how to keep them from drying out, ensuring that the Gryffindor had gotten it right, making him transform his eyes again and again and again until Velia told him to ‘leave the poor boy alone!’

They said their goodbyes to the six Italians who wished them fun for the rest of the day, winking and smirking knowingly and laughing at Harry’s blush and Draco’s and Blaise’s sneering.

And suddenly the moment was there and Harry stood with his back to Blaise’s chest, their bodies held together with a sticking charm, toeing the edge of the chariot’s platform, Draco standing next to him, clasping his right hand tightly. The dark Italian’s warm breath teased against the shell of his ears, distracting but not enough so…

"Okay, then. On three!"

And looking downward, Harry could think of a million reasons (given or taken a few) why this was an honest to god bad idea.

Like the fact he had thrown off a sticking charm not even an hour ago.

"One!"

Not willing to follow that nauseating thought any further, he whipped his gaze away from the ground and to the endless horizon before him but that didn’t miraculously eradicate his objections.  
Like the one that Blaise and Draco had only had wings for two months now and therefore not that much more flying experience than Harry had.

"Two!"

Harry held out his left hand for Draco to take, locking eyes with the blonde’s which flashed in an unspoken challenge, a challenge Harry couldn’t _not_ take, his smirk wide and dangerous as he grasped both of Harry’s hands and…

"Three…"

They jumped sideways off the chariot, Blaise securely behind him, Draco in front of him.

For a moment, Harry was simply and utterly shocked. His stomach churned so violently from the sudden drop that he felt unable to breathe for a moment or two and he pressed himself against Blaise’s body as flatly as he could, reeling from the intensity of the experience as the two Slytherins turned the three of them around so they plummeted headfirst towards the foothills, gaining speed with every second.

The force of the wind and the friction was violent and stupefying and for a moment Harry wondered why he wasn’t afraid. His heart rate was skyrocketing for sure and the rush pierced through every part of his body mercilessly, bluntly.

But it was not terrifying like he thought it might turn out to be, it was exhilarating, liberating. It was defying gravity and physical laws and hardships, the most pure form of freedom and weightlessness that Harry had ever known. And he had flown in a car and ridden on brooms and thestrals and Hyppogryphs and even a dragon. This outshone anything and everything else.  
He was brimming with a fullness of life that came from exploring the boundaries and finding that you pushed them further just by trying and still haven’t found the limits.

He looked ahead at Draco’s pale throat, saw the skin ripple from the wind, followed that silver gaze towards the ground that didn’t seem to come any nearer, the vague outlines of the landscape beneath them keeping that illusion of a model with that blanket of green treetops, the faint greyish lines of the streets, the rag rug of green and beige fields.

As if they weren’t falling at all, as if they were truly weightless.

Floating above the world.

The fall took no longer than 30 seconds, but it were the most wonderful moments in his life, an eternity of keeping his whole life, his very existence in suspense, the world with its grief and dangers and problems a far removed surreal phantom that held no meaning.

It was such a profound and powerful experience that Harry didn’t even think about reaching out with his magic, of sharing this precious, immeasurable amount of time. Harry didn’t think he could stomach the additional sensations of merging into one being… he might have lost himself in it.

Finally they were close enough to the ground and Draco let go of his hands, pushing himself away from them and Harry saw his wings appearing slowly as if they melted out of his back around his shoulders, not disturbing his flight. He could feel Blaise behind him doing the same, the copper and bronze wings brushing slightly against his shoulders before they started to fan out a bit.

Strong arms wound around his torso and Harry grasped at them tightly as he imagined that it were his forest- and spring-green wings doing that instead of Blaise’s. The longing to just spread his wings and fly himself was so tangible, so painfully real and solid in his chest, that the temptation was difficult to resist. But it might be dangerous to unbalance Blaise that way.

They shot off into opposite directions as the Slytherins started to pull out of the dive, Blaise with Harry towards the mountains, Draco towards the sea.

Once again Harry’s stomach felt as if it was pressed into his chest as Blaise arched his back, suddenly unfurled his short wings with the durable, hard feathers wide, turning their fall into a sudden rise that had Harry close his eyes, the fast change in direction overwhelming, dizzying and he had to concentrate on the arms around him, that pressed into his stomach, held him tight and safe.  
Soon Blaise’s flight levelled out into a leisure downward spiral towards the forest beneath them that Draco joined a few moments later.

Harry laid his head back against Blaise’s shoulder, nudging his neck in a silent thank you because he didn’t think words would make it past the grin literally splitting his face in two, didn’t think that he would ever be able to explain the tsunami of emotions surging within him, flooding him. This had been worth everything, maybe even becoming a bird.

* * *

  
After that dive, it took Harry forever to calm down enough to even take note of his surroundings again let alone take part in the lunch that Draco and Blaise had brought along in shrunken packages.

But the scenery where they had landed was perfect: soothing his frazzled nerves with the quietness of nature and moreover, natural magic. The energy that permeated the earth and air and every single plant around them was so in tune with his own that Harry at first hadn’t even noticed its presence but once he had been made aware of it, Harry could feel it vibrating in every cell of his body.

Apparently, what looked like the overgrown, ruinous remnants of some small, roman temple was one of the last naturally magical places in Italy, a wizarding preserve area where unique plants and animals could be found that were unable to survive outside of this little sanctuary.

The Battellis had covered for them, pretending to book this place for the day so that no one would know that three Vykélari had been there. Thanks to them they spent some undisturbed hours between toppled stone pillars overgrown by moss and roots, sitting on a blanket on the grass in the shadow of a Hesperides' tree and eating sandwiches and fruit-salad and a terribly huge amount of different sweets while they talked about anything that came to mind.  
It started with the dive and how Draco and Blaise had been taken on such activities with their already fledged relatives long before they had gotten their own wings and somehow evolved into Harry telling them some of the minor adventures he had experienced in his early years at Hogwarts, especially those that the Slytherins had played some role in. It soon became rather grotesque because their perceptions of certain events differed so much sometimes Harry had to wonder whether they had lived through different realities that had somehow been merged into one now.

Perhaps, Harry was enjoying Blaise’s and Draco’s reactions a bit too much as he let them in on how Buckbeak really had escaped; but the subtle shifts in their expressions were just too precious… Harry didn’t think the Slytherins would recover their cool façades anytime soon.

Maybe that was why Blaise produced a Pensieve and a wooden box from a tiny, extremely shrunken trunk not unlike the one Harry had seen in the deceased Alastor Moody’s possession (or his imposter’s, actually). It was a 'teatro del pensiero', as Blaise explained to him, a Pensieve Theatre containing the memories of wizarding actors. It was an interactive game insofar as that after every scene the onlookers could decide between different bottled memories, different sceneries, depending on how they wanted the leading actor to behave.

Because of his ostensible 'inability to leave a secret the hell alone', Blaise and Draco had chosen a mystery story for them.  
Harry loved it, because not only was it giving him some insight in the work of an Auror, and glances into the life of wizarding families and politics, showing social rules and traditions that he hadn’t even imagined before with his short stays with the Weasleys as his only reference, but it also gave him the opportunity of solving riddles while listening to Blaise and Draco scheming and spinning intrigues…

Apropos: should he be concerned that the two Slytherins spent more time discussing smart, complex and devious ways of committing certain crimes and getting away with it than actually trying to solve the murder case the play was about?

Harry decided not to care for as long as they weren’t carried out; maybe this was the difference between Slytherins and Gryffindors playing cops and robbers…  


* * *

  
Quite a few hours later, the three of them set out for their last destination that day. In one of the compartments of the trunk that Blaise had brought – which turned out to be more of a dressing room than anything else – they had changed into their dress robes before the Slytherins proceeded to alter their appearance slightly and Harry had ended up with nut-brown hair and chocolate coloured eyes.

Blaise’s new, unusually pale skin colour should have made him look sickly but instead he looked a little vampiric: startling dark eyes surrounded by still olive skin that nonetheless was just a nuance too light for him, making his lips more prominent and well, a constant focus for Harry’s suddenly too short attention span. He straightened his hair out and coloured the strands a tad lighter, which Harry was sorely sorry for, because somehow he loved that slightly curly shock of hair.  
Draco on the other hand had darkened his hair to a dark gold and looked as if he had spent a few hours in the sun for a change. The slight tan looked good on him but not like Draco anymore and Harry found himself missing the platinum blonde and almost translucent skin.

It was a strange feeling, knowing that he didn’t look like Harry Potter anymore, even stranger to see unknown faces on the two men he had spent almost every moment of the last few days with and quite a few very intense and life-altering experiences. And in a way it was a constant reminder that outside of the little bubble the Slytherins had created for him he wasn’t safe, and especially not his magic.

It made him feel a little bit apprehensive and anxious as they apparated directly to the east-southern end of the small Tiber Island. From there a small, flying boat had taken them to a group of floating platforms in a vague half-circle over the elongated chariot racing stadium, the Circus Maximus, and towards the enormous outlines of the Coliseum. The view was spectacular, the city spreading out beneath them, bustling and pulsing and humming with life that swirled around the ancient monuments and remnants of long forgotten times like the waves of the ocean that washed around and gnawed at the age old rocks embedded deeply into the fleeting sand of the shore.

To that view they ate on the highest of seven platforms that were spelled to look like the sky from below and were transparent from above, and travelled slowly in seemingly random paths over the ancient city. They were covered with protection and disillusionment charms and a variation of the Notice-Me-Not, so that no muggle would notice them.

But more importantly: they were alone on this platform and aside from a single waiter no one intruded on their privacy, which calmed Harry considerably.

For over two hours they sat and talked and enjoyed the descending night and the lights that flickered to life below them, sometimes falling silent for several moments, just watching.

During such a quiet time, Draco leaned over the table towards Harry, eyes glowing in the wavering light of the single candle between them; intense, deep and filled with that spark of mischief that Harry had missed in his post-war life.

"Did you know, Harry, that some birds court by dancing with their prospective partners?" He asked with such an utterly straight face that Harry wondered for a moment if he had heard correctly. Was he being asked to dance?  
"If they can move together in perfect harmony," The blonde continued, "they regard each other as worthy mates."

Oh god, he was. Caught between mortification and amusement, Harry could do nothing but safe himself behind the shield of sarcasm. "Really? This totally renders all my problems null and void: since I couldn’t dance to safe my life, I won’t have to mate at all! Jeez Draco…" he said with mock disappointment "You really should have told me that earlier! Though I won’t complain of course, not … after today…"

He stumbled over the last few words, realizing what he was saying only a fraction of a second too late. Flushing bright red, Harry cursed inwardly… he really hadn’t meant to say that out loud and he lamented the fact that he never really had such problems before becoming entangled with this insane Vykélari mess (though to be honest, Harry really couldn’t tell if he shouldn’t just attribute his missing brain-to-mouth-filter on the influence of the Slytherins; they seemed to do that to him sometimes).

Thankfully for once the other two young men chose not to bask in his embarrassment for too long, though it was debatable whether the alternative was better.

"We have both seen you fight, Harry. Anyone who can handle himself on a battlefield with such grace is also able to dance just as well." And while Blaise spoke those words, Draco stood and rounded their table with sure steps, resting his hands onto the backrest of Harry’s chair, indicating for him to stand.

With a long-suffering sigh, Harry did, rolling his eyes as the blonde behind him insisted on pulling out the chair for him. At least they had already seen how bad of a dancer he was back in their fourth year and Harry couldn’t imagine performing any worse than that. Every scale needed to have a lower end and that, Harry had already exhausted.

"It’s not going to be _my feet_ on the line…"

Draco smirked obviously unfazed and grasped the sullen, younger Gryffindor’s hand in his, leading him to the open part of the platform where Blaise soon joined them to help position Harry’s elbows, hands, and general stance.

Thus, Harry found himself once again caught between Blaise’s firm body behind him and Draco’s slighter frame in front of him and the insignificant amount of space they left between them seemed more teasing than anything else, making him more aware of the Italian’s hands resting on his hips that were guiding his steps as they slowly moved over the transparent floor and Draco’s left hand on his back firmly keeping him in place.

It was too close for his comfort and yet not close enough for his liking, making his heart beat fast and his skin tingle in anticipation but no matter what, they neither moved away nor allowed him to be closer than he already was. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t look into Draco’s eyes that he knew would devour him, couldn’t look down at his feet like he so desperately wished to, because not looking into Draco’s eyes wasn’t an option either.

His feet constantly tangled with themselves and with those of his dance partners when Harry just reacted too slowly again and he _did_ maltreat the one or the other feet beneath his own. Repeatedly.

Having had enough, Blaise suddenly stepped away from him and swooped the Gryffindor’s lithe body up bridal style, ignoring Harry’s surprised outcry and flailing arms as Draco stepped closer from the other side, stabilising them and pushing his arms beneath Harry’s legs and shoulders also.

"See?" Blaise asked while he and Draco performed a few turns with the younger man trapped in their hold between them and if his eyes hadn’t outright laughed at Harry, he would have thought that the Italian snake was completely serious with that smug, self-satisfied smirk playing around his lips. "We can dance _perfectly_ well together."

Harry couldn’t help the mirthful, embarrassed, incredulous laugh bubbling out of him and he didn’t even try.  
"Yeah, sure. Now let me go…" He pleaded instead, grateful that no one else was able to see him now.

* * *

  
In the early morning hours of the following day, the Slytherins finally apparated them home to Lanai Manor, where they followed the illuminated path to the main house, the white gravel crunching beneath their feet, the ocean greeting them with the quiet rushing of waves tumbling onto the sandy shore.

Without any hesitation they all headed to Harry’s rooms together, Blaise and Harry in silence while Draco kept on talking like he was sometimes wont to do, or at least like he used to, Harry remembered, before everything had gone to hell in their sixth year.

Though now it was the first time that Harry experienced the flood of words without eavesdropping (that time in the Slytherin common room totally counted as eavesdropping, besides they had been only twelve then) or happening upon the blonde and his goons totally by chance and it was astoundingly comfortable to just listen to all the background information to their activities today, mixed with random thoughts and anecdotes and Harry kept on sneaking amused glances towards Blaise who just smiled and winked back, his own silent version of a fond 'he does that' – the words Draco had used that day at the sea when his fiancé had gone ahead and directly flown into the waves without waiting for them.

And when had he started to be able to read them that well?

"Well, then, good night it is, ma douce colibri."

Startled out of his thoughts, surprised that they had already arrived at their destination, Harry looked to the door leading to his rooms a bit accusingly as if it was the reason this day was about to end. And by Merlin, that was the truth wasn’t it? He really didn’t want this day to end, really wanted to have more, more wonderful, breath-taking experiences full of surprises and extremes, of testing their boundaries together. Blaise and Draco and he himself.

Blinking, not quite in shock but still a bit taken aback at that realisation, Harry turned towards them, searching for something, anything to prolong this moment, hold onto it just as he had held onto Draco and Blaise during that reckless jump; which was illogical and mad and unnecessary because they’d see each other in the morning, anyway.

Nervously he licked his lips. "Thank you for today… you know, everything. I really had a great … a great time."

Draco smiled as he stepped closer, reaching out to cup Harry’s cheek, turning it up with gentle pressure so that the slightly smaller man had to look directly into his eyes. For a single endless moment he remained like that, leaning slightly forward as he bluntly invaded Harry’s personal space, doing nothing but staring and stroking a strand of black hair away from the corner of his eyes. But it didn’t seem as if he was hesitating, merely as if he was offering Harry the chance to realise what he wanted to do, the choice to pull away, maybe, turn his head.

It was a ruse, Harry thought, because someone with such piercing eyes should know that he needed no arms or hands to trap his prey. The brunet couldn’t have looked away if his life depended on it, feeling like the trembling little finch staring at the hawk tumbling through the canopy.

His magic swirled in his belly, slowly and indefinite as mist, hesitating to take form like a wisp of cloud, as if waiting for a cue on how to act.

Suddenly Harry felt a spark of indignation at himself, surging through him and making his magic solidify and coil and hum in excitement within him. That vision of the fragile little bird wasn’t him, was less than he was and he’d prove it, to himself and anyone else who might or might not be doubting it.

Determinedly, Harry leaned forward and up, reaching out to wind his hands into the soft blond strands at that sinewy neck, and they were so smooth and silky in their texture, fine and thin, caressing the skin of his fingers like cool satin that he couldn’t help but tug softly at the white golden mass, pulling the blonde down to meet him halfway. For a moment those silver eyes widened in surprise but immediately they started to burn with bluish hot flames, cleared from some nebulous veil that usually hid everything going on in those endless depths.

Harry’s stomach gave a sudden jolt and he closed his drooping eyes, feeling warm breath ghosting over his lips that was replaced an eternity of a second later by Draco’s lips, soft and warm and gentle as they moved against his. Curling his fingers against the pale neck, Harry arched into the other’s body, a shockwave of pleasure searing along his nerves and his magic rose in answer like a phoenix so hot and blazing and enthralling.

He fought it down. Just because he found that he could! Held it back, coiled it up tightly until it was trembling from restrained eagerness inside him. The powerful knowledge and sense of accomplishment rushed through him like a wave of euphoria.

Teeth buried themselves in his lower lip, a demand for more, for Harry to part his lips for Draco and he did so willingly, eagerly, enjoyed the feeling of Draco’s agile tongue mapping the circle of his teeth, the outline of his mouth, entangling with his tongue, relished it just as much as the blonde did himself.  
He pressed forward to deepen their kiss and was greeted by sweetness and the sharp tang of wine coupled with a million other more subtle flavours.

And he let go of the tight hold he kept on his magic, pushing it into Draco’s stomach and downwards, spilling it into his mouth and letting it pierce the pale skin through the tips of his fingers, raw sparks searing along nerves, stroking and caressing to the quick rhythm of their breaths and hearts and touches.

A strangled moan escaped Draco and it made Harry feel great and powerful and elated and he let himself fall into his magic’s hold, feeling his senses heighten and sharpen, zoning in on the pleasure coursing through him like liquid fire.

Draco’s lips grew more demanding, possessive, aggressive, his mouth covering Harry’s as if he wanted to devour him whole, his hands mapping the outlines of Harry’s body so much more insistently than Blaise had. Harry was quickly losing the battle against his control, and Draco took over, unleashing a ferociousness on Harry that he had never experienced before. Mindlessly, Harry moaned into the kiss.

Then he was suddenly gone but before Harry had a chance to voice his discontent, another mouth moved over his, nibbling, kissing, sucking, tasting with a gentleness that stood in stark contrast to Draco’s forcefulness of a moment before. His magic, confused and bereft at the loss of the first Vykélari’s closeness, pushed forward with a hint of hesitation, then eagerly as it came into contact with Blaise's wonderfully familiar power, flooding the Italian's body with waves over waves of magic, swirls and pulsing bulbs of light and energy. Softly trembling fingers gently caressed Harry’s cheek, his sides, coaxing him closer and deeper into the kiss until they were both gasping for breath.

"I’m sorry" Blaise murmured breathlessly as he broke away, a pleasantry without meaning, Harry could tell because the dark skinned Italian looked everything but contrite.

He looked dazed; just as much as Draco did: both their eyes blown and dark. Just as much as Harry felt.

"You looked good together…" He murmured absentmindedly, his head cocked to the side, dark eyes following the line of Harry's jaw and mouth unblinkingly. Blaise licked his lips.  
"I couldn’t just watch the two of you any longer without…" For a moment he was silent, glancing between Harry and Draco with chocolate eyes that became more clear by the moment before settling them on the Gryffindor, a self-mocking smirk playing around his kiss-bruised lips. "Don’t castrate me?"

And Harry half groaned and half chuckled and rolled his eyes as he remembered his threat from the day before, made in the heat of the moment, spurred on by his own fearful realisation of how very vulnerable they all were.  
Honestly, he couldn’t be angry: he had been the one to initiate the kiss after all and well, it gave Harry a not inconsiderable amount of guilty satisfaction to see the two Slytherins, especially Draco, still so affected from their little make-out session. Even now the pale blonde stood there frozen and silent, with a dazed expression on his still a bit pointed face, a marble monument to _Harry's_ skill as a kisser and the seductive power of _Harry's_ very own life essence, his magic, the nature and boundaries of which he was only just beginning to explore. The smugness he felt over that little trivia almost completely shoved the gut-wrenching contrition from the screen of his consciousness, contrition at what he had done, at playing on the dominants' instincts, when he had promised himself to keep his distance until they had control over their magic only the day before. Almost.

"I don’t think I will do that quite yet." He said finally, turning to his rooms with a small smile. Not only would Draco probably hate him if he delivered his threat, but Harry had a feeling that he himself might come to really regret such an action as well.  
Maybe… one day?

"Well, thank you Harry, how very gracious." Draco drawled amusedly, his smirk sharp and pointed, "I don't think I'd enjoy an eunuch for a lover very much…"

And how Draco was enjoying his very not-emasculated lover wasn't a visual he really needed to have, Harry thought as he palmed his scarlet face, the sound of Blaise slapping Draco's arm a satisfying and welcome distraction.

* * *

  
After a few more minutes of teasing banter going back and forth and another two or three kisses being stolen, Harry finally retreated with another thanks for the wonderful day, slipping into the velvety darkness of his rooms.

Quickly he closed the door while behind him the shadows swathing the living area flickered and died reluctantly as, one by one, candles burst to life magically upon his entrance, making the beiges and sand colours of the elegant furnishings and the artfully marbleized walls glow.

But Harry barely took notice of how the flaring flames filled every edge of the room with warm and gentle light as he absentmindedly leaned back against the door. Knowing that behind not even two inches of wood and maybe a few feet of air Draco and Blaise still stood in mutual silence was distractive enough. At least he hadn't heard their retreating steps, even though some distant part of him remembered that privacy charms suffused the wood and the stone walls, to prevent even Vykélari hearing from being disturbed by any noise.

Merlin, they could kiss… and while Harry still doubted whether he maybe should have done it, he couldn't help but think that the whole day had gravitated towards such an ending as straightforward and unstoppable as a Niffler following the scent of gold.

And damn, if that day hadn't felt as if his dates had secretly drunk some Felix Felicis... it wasn't as if Harry didn't think them capable of doing something like that, or that he would mind, honestly, the golden liquid was after all no love potion that inspired feelings that weren't there. But he knew there was no way the two Slytherins would have been able to acquire the expensive rarity on such short notice, and they probably would have won the game of aerial warfare, if the potion had played any part. Which meant... that maybe he could stop reminding himself to give the two Slytherins a chance and just do it instead.

Slowly Harry laid his head against the solid wood of the door and closed his eyes, thinking back to that floating restaurant, the ruins, the teatro del pensiero, the falling and before that the ride in those floating chariots... Blaise and Draco had put much more effort into planning this date than Harry ever had with Cho or Ginny both. And more money. There was no denying that.

Harry didn't usually care much for material things and during the few dates he had had, he had always enjoyed the simplicity and uncomplicatedness of merely spending time with someone he liked and being able to get to know one another without any fancy distractions that were only meant to show off and impress.  
But as Draco had said that day they went swimming in the sea: for the two Slytherins all that they had given him so far was nothing extraordinary. And it wasn't as if Harry would ever need them to finance such kinds of activities if he decided that he didn’t want them to stay something extraordinary for him either: even if he decided not to mate his two hosts, even if he managed to get away with mating no one at all, Harry was still the sole heir to the Potter fortune and had inherited most of Sirius' possessions as well. He would never have to depend on anyone to uphold or reach a certain live standard and his hosts knew that well.

So Harry had accepted that they were not boasting, trying to impress him or buy him over with all the little luxuries offered to him so freely; rather they seemed to enjoy pulling him along in their not quite voluntary holiday, choosing to ignore a world beyond the dreamlike landscape of the Italian coast where a civil war in their homeland had just culminated in a bloody battle lead by Harry himself, where the corpses of friends and schoolmates rotted under grave compost that was dark and fresh and had not yet had the time to be overgrown with plants like a wound in the earth itself waiting to just scar and stop hurting; choosing to ignore a world where Blaise and Draco's parents were trying to force them into cruelly predefined roles and the wizarding community was a powder keg just waiting for a spark to ignite it and blow up right in their faces.

It was a simple case of escapism and it might have been reckless and stupid but Harry felt it was what he had been thirsting for, and he deserved to have experienced it at least for a single day. He had relished the carefree hours he spent with his hosts, and yes, also the luxuries they provided him with; even though he still didn't quite get the need for bed rooms that might comfortably fit a whole year of Hogwarts students or why someone would need to _possess_ a villa that was probably only inhabited for three or four weeks a year instead of just going to some nice hotel.

Or the need for a living area the size of an entire flat, Harry finished his list as he pushed away from the door and headed for his bedroom where he quickly shed the expensive, dark blue dress robes and carelessly threw them over the back of a chair.

Regardless, it had been a long time since he had been able to enjoy such carefreeness, such simple and meaningless fooling around and it had been nice, more than nice: liberating and exhilarating; and somehow he felt more like himself now – more like any normal teenager – than he had since the day Dumbledore had told him that he would have to become a killer to save everything and everyone he held dear.

To top everything, his magic had followed his lead throughout the day, not interfering the slightest bit with his actions and feelings, at least not that he could tell. It had swirled in excitement and hummed in appreciation, but mostly it had been content and quiet. And maybe that had something to do with the fact that Harry had not tried to push Draco and Blaise away, had indulged their wishes, had not attempted to pull back when they had gotten physically close. Or it was something simpler: so far his magic had only interfered when he had been angry or afraid or simply overwhelmed, urging him to rely on the two dominants that had guided him through his transition, taken him in afterwards and protected him. Maybe it was enough for his magic to have Harry trust them?

In any case, Harry thought as he made his way to the bathroom, the little control he had found was the perfect little extra to a great, almost perfect day.

Well, with the exception of the beginning, when he had met Adler right after Hermione, Ron, Blaise, Draco and he himself had talked about the mess with the article and the Slytherins’ parents.

Something about the portrait stroke Harry as odd, something was definitely wrong with him… the way he had looked at Harry after that tiny something had flown into his eye reminded him far too much of a hunter smiling down at a deer caught in a trap: full of dark satisfaction. And Ives being so angry suddenly did nothing to soothe his suspicions.  
Maybe he should ask the other submissive in the morning what their shrewd behaviour had been about. He wasn't sure if the redhead would answer, but surely at least he wouldn't outright lie.

So engrossed was he in his thoughts that Harry jumped in alarm as he heard his name being called softly and with a pounding heart he looked around the room, the many candles luckily producing more than enough light to search for an intruder. But there was none.

"Who is there?" He called out quietly, all weariness from the long day forgotten. He didn't doubt for a single moment that _something_ was in his rooms, having learnt years ago to trust his instincts, that itching feeling of being observed or overheard.

Quickly his eyes darted to the closed door of his office. There was _no way_ that Ives could have heard the quiet murmur or his call with how well the rooms in Lanai Manor were isolated, even if he was in his portray.

Would Ives even hear him if he called out for him to get Draco and Blaise? Would he be in the room? Should he even try?

Uselessly, Harry's hand clenched around the thin air at his hip where his wand should have been. The emptiness made his stomach churn uncomfortably. It wouldn't be the first time he'd have to face a potential threat unarmed, though.   
And Harry was almost sure that this was a threat. Draco and Blaise would have told him if there was anyone else who might search him out, not to mention the fact that it was already two or three o'clock in the morning. They were so adamant about the privacy of one's own rooms.  
"Show yourself!" He demanded, calmly, calculatingly, needing to know where the danger originated from.

"I'm right here, sottomesso." Came that same soft voice with a strong Italian lilt to it.

Italian. Had someone recognized them at the restaurant? Had the Battellis betrayed Harry's whereabouts?  
It was doubtful, they had sworn wizarding oaths, but still someone might have forced the information from them…

"You’ll have to move away the curtains, uccellino."

Merlin, no! His stomach knotting in apprehension, Harry turned towards the two-way-mirror leaning against the wall, veiled with a thick curtain so that Harry who had no wand to close the connection could still have his privacy in this suite of rooms that Blaise had given him.

Ron … Hermione!

Swallowing bile around the sudden lump in his throat, Harry walked towards the mirror as if in a trance, his feet moving without his consent.

Let them be alright let them be alright let them be alright…

The mantra didn’t help to settle the sense of foreboding and dread as Harry reached out with a shivering hand to pull aside the white curtain and he stood frozen as his eyes fell onto the man standing there so casually within the rectangle of another two-way-mirror and in front of the reflective surface there Harry could see the cowering, tied up forms of his two best friends.  



	22. Requiem for a Dream

It was eerily like a wizarding photo taken and captured from out of the frighteningly vast realm of his nightmares, the dark thoughts and fears that had occasionally tormented him since waking after the full moon a few days ago.

But those wraithlike shadows should never have actually solidified, Harry had never really thought they would, not least because Draco and Blaise had assured him that his friends were safe … Probably. Likely. Maybe.

Maybe not.

Harry shivered, muscles trembling from brutal rage and shock and fear and he knew he should look up into the eyes of the kidnapper looming in the forefront of his mirror like a too-close enemy in the foe glass; he should start negotiating, start trying to free his friends but for endlessly stretching seconds he could do nothing but stare on and on, because there was Hermione – the lively, fiery woman, the beautiful, wonderful, smart Hermione – with her white hands tied together behind her lying on the ground and a gag distorting her red lips, tear streaks running from her terrified eyes, painfully wide and pleading like those of a wounded deer about to be mauled by the hunter's pack of hounds, yet unable to run.

She hadn’t ever looked so mindlessly afraid and helpless, not even when the three of them – the much tried and celebrated Golden Trio – had been captured and brought to Malfoy Manor.

What unspeakable atrocities had they done to her that was worse than facing torture, agony and a violent, bloody death at the hands of one Bellatrix Lestrange? The thought that these men – because the one standing so casually in the mirror surely couldn't have managed to overtake his friends on his own – had managed to do what a woman who took pleasure in torturing people into insanity hadn't, made his blood run cold, made him feel feint and sick.

Ron didn't even meet his eyes. And he trembled, like he did only when being faced with the monstrous spiders living in the Forbidden Forest.

Harry felt his throat tighten and his hands spasm helplessly at his side, whether to ball into fists, or twitch with the desire to throttle or snap something, or to wring in agitation, Harry was not sure.

What had they _done_?

Something inside of him flinched and ruptured and bled out at the sight of his best friends reduced to broken, shivering heaps of fear: pain and horror at this nightmare leaking out of him in rivulets, freezing over quickly with cold-blooded fury and determination so strong and clear and destructive like ice crystals forming in the water that unobtrusively permeated porous rocks until they burst it apart, while his reality narrowed itself down to the task set before him.

Whatever the cost, he wouldn't let Hermione or Ron remain at the mercy of these vile bastards for a second longer than necessary. He would bring them home, see that they'd recover. He would.

Suddenly he found himself able to breathe again, thick, sharp air streaming through his too quickly expanding lungs only to be forced out a moment later, but it was a start. This would keep him function, allow his mind and his body to fall into the deceptive calm he had used when fighting against _him_ , because rage he could drown in dark pools of ice, could ignore even easier than fear and terror, to plan and scheme and keep a leveled head and do what was goddamn _necessary_. And he could pull it forth and unleash it purposefully just as quickly, yield it like a weapon to enable himself to do things he'd never thought himself capable of.

Like killing.

And Harry had defanged far greater men.

Eyes dry and hard and skin crawling with the surreal surety of what he was physically and emotionally able to do once again and at a moment's notice, Harry raised his gaze to his target, his magic lashing out inside of him against invisible shields, hissing, growling and trembling with the desire to attack like a lion clawing at the bars of its cage, like a mass of cobras and mambas threatening and striking at thin air, like tendrils of power whipping and darting around violently and unpredictably just as accrued electricity suddenly discharging in storm clouds.

It was difficult to keep it all imprisoned when it made him feel as if he was the one caught in his prickling, too tight skin; so alarmingly hard and arduous to not attack the mirror as his eyes found the man standing there two mirror connections apart from him so close and yet unreachable, but he wrapped it up in a coat of iron and thorns and held the parcel of rancour close to his chest, his very being. This wasn't a battle magic could fight. Not yet.  
Not while there were who knew how many miles between him and his enemy.

Immediately Harry's mind turned and leapt into action, instincts and logic forcing his misplaced emotions behind a precariously fragile barrier as he started struggling for plans, ideas, notions – anything to keep his friends safe and to _bring himself closer to his enemy_.

His eyes rushed over the drama being played out in front of him, greedily taking in every ounce of information, registering the man in the mirror next to Hermione's frail-looking form, but dismissing him as an immediate threat to himself and his friends almost instantaneously, because though his wand was easily reachable in the black holster at his side, laced with silver runes for protection and strength, his stance was relaxed, unconcerned even and his arms were folded behind his back – secure and confident in the knowledge that Harry couldn't do anything to him over the delicate magical connection of the two-way-mirrors.  
But it also worked the other way round: with one mirror-connection between the bastard and Hermione and Ron, and another one to Harry himself, he couldn't attack either.

He also couldn't have tortured his friends and so logic dictated that there had to be another wizard whom Harry couldn't see within the mirror's frame. And an invisible threat was hard to fight.

His heart thumping, Harry's eyes rushed over the interior of the room that so cruelly held his friends captive but there was no sign of this mysterious other. Instead a flicker of uncertainty twitched through his body as something else registered in his mind: It wasn't a room at all.

There was a neat row of small, oval windows opening to the endless darkness of the night, deeply embedded into a white, concave wall of metal; there, a line of luxuriously wide, comfortable chairs sat enthroned beneath the soft curve of luggage racks; unmovable and rigid and turned towards the windows as if they were unwilling to witness what was happening there. And oh, how he could emphasize, Harry thought even while the realisation struck like lightning: It was one of the pricier classes of a plane, though someone had removed the chairs in the middle row to make room for the grotesque and cruel play now taking place on this makeshift stage, only leaving the incisions in the dark blue-grey carpet where chairs should have been anchored to the floor.

It was a drama with only one spectator – Harry – played on a stage that was unsettling and confusing and ominous because it was the height of muggle technology used by wizards, of all people. Even worse: most likely they were pureblood wizards using muggle technology deliberately. That was dangerous and frightening and just so plain _wrong_! And not only because they should reject everything muggle based on their age-old traditions and beliefs: no, technology and magic simply didn't mix well, a common knowledge amongst wizards and Harry knew it by heart as well – Hermione had recited Hogwarts, A History often enough.  
Nonetheless these kidnappers had intentionally chosen a plane as a bolthole. But why … why … a plane? Where were they taking them that a portkey couldn't so much faster and more efficiently? Not for a moment Harry believed this to be a coincidence or a simple convenience and not knowing the reason made his stomach clench uncomfortably but before he could figure out the motivations behind this seemingly unreasonable chess move, that soft Italian lilt that Harry started to hate from the bottom of his heart, resounded again in the wide living room.

"Mr Potter," the man spoke clearly, careful of the exact pronunciation of every single syllable "I am very pleased to finally meet you."

Harry dragged his gaze to the man in the mirror next to his friends again, uncomprehending how he could sound so polite and civilized while kidnapping and torturing two teenagers to…  
God, it was happening, he realized with a suddenness that left him reeling, almost made him stumble and fall… he was being forced to mate, forced to endure such a close bond not with Draco and Blaise with whom he had found it so comfortable and nice, but with this ambitious, pretentious devil. How was he to do that? Feel nothing but that icy coldness and sadistic pleasure after being allowed a glimpse of a golden dream of possibilities? How could he allow his heartbeat to synchronize with one beating so calm while its owner ordered such atrocities and have him leeching off his magic?

But how could he not, if it was his friends' lives being at stake...

It really was ironic that despite placing Harry in this gruesome situation by giving him such a choice, the man was in appearance a strangely very human aristocrat that didn't look at all like a cruel sadist or a future dark lord.

In all honesty, Harry had half expected another snake-faced abomination, and was left with a sense of hollow disappointment when a rather unremarkable gentleman greeted his vision – he had learned long ago that it was easier to hate if the object of your loathing couldn't really be seen as a person anymore, just an abstract personification of anything dark and evil. But in defiance to his imagination the man standing there like a statue of black marble was no grotesque monster but a wizard like any other: neither extraordinarily pale nor tanned with short dark hair that just started to grey, silver strands mingling with the blackness. An elegant, tight dress robe hugged his narrow frame, falling down his lean shoulders like a dark waterfall interwoven with barely visible symbols and swirls of dark grey and blue.

Somehow his innocuous, dignified appearance seemed so profoundly, fundamentally _wrong_ in the face of his actions so far.

But his features were plain and stony and the smile on his face was so unpractised and off, his stance so straight that Harry couldn't escape the feeling that this man was merely reciting rules of etiquette and decorum he had committed to memory without understanding the meaning behind them. Even Snape had lines on his face that proved he had smiled and laughed and frowned in his life; this man's expression still held the smoothness of someone unused to showing much emotion. That might make him more dangerous even than Voldemort, who for all his power had been felled by his own insane rage and fear and ever-growing narcissism guiding all his doings, destroying his reason.

At least this dominant Vykélari might be rational enough to make negotiations possible. Cold enough to consider the consequences of his actions even over the crude, raw threats Harry was about to make.

Even so, Harry licked his dry lips, trying to at least keep the snarl and disgust from his voice and speak as clearly and evenly as possible as he fixed his opponent with a venomous glare he hoped to be cold and determined and not betraying the fast beat of his heart that clamoured in his ears and thumped in his throat almost painfully so.  
"If you hurt my friends, I not only won't mate with you I _swear_ I will find you and – with every ounce of magic within me – I will rip you apart!"

And he allowed his magic to force his mask and markings forward, the energizing lines on the skin along the sides of his ribcage and around his eyes, and he shook forth the feathers in his hair and felt the claws sprout from his fingertips, curvy and sharp and dangerous, dripping and hissing with poison, to remind the other that he had the power to back his threats, too.

Unmovable and unimpressed, the Italian regarded his changes with a kind of scientific curiosity. "Are you not even interested in learning my name?"

The question took Harry aback, not having expected the man to just ignore his threats. Nonetheless Harry shook his head in answer, terse and tense. What would a name change?  
It translated to nothing but the insignificance of being able to address your enemy, the meaningless ability to put a name to the face you never wanted to see again. In the end, Harry would still be required to leave Lanai Manor behind, to betray and leave Draco and Blaise and that thought burned so surprisingly hot and painful in his mind, that Harry let it go immediately.

He'd rather kill this nameless nobody than give him his body and his magic and allow himself to be used as a weapon. He'd rather kill again before unleashing another powerful monster on the wizarding world, even though he was so battle weary, so tired of fighting and blood and death. But first, he had to safe Ron and Hermione and he didn't need a name for that.

Besides, it had been so much easier to think about ridding the world of Lord Voldemort than killing Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"I really couldn't care less."

The man clicked his tongue disapprovingly as if offended by Harry's discourtesy, even while he tilted his head and let his appreciative, hooded gaze wander over every expanse of naked skin visible over the waistband of Harry's pyjama bottoms, making him feel uncomfortably exposed and cold despite the warm night air. He could feel his skin crawling with the need to cover up and his fingers curling at his side with the distaste of being stared at like a beautiful piece of jewellery in a shop window, but he refused to cow and fold his arms around himself in a vague attempt to hide his state of undress, straightening his posture defiantly instead.

"It is better for you not to know for now anyway." The other hummed for a moment, a tiny, pleased and pensive sound from deep within his slender throat. Then a sharp-edged smirk cut his lips wider, dark amusement creeping into his eyes and the angles of his expression.

"Your markings are beautiful, young submissive." He complimented, sounding taunting to the younger Vykélari's ears, and Harry felt the disgust tighten his stomach, never having hated the degrading label as much as in that very moment.

"However, contrary to your wild assumptions, I am not particularly interested in a mating between the two of us. I am almost thrice your age and hardly an appropriate mate for a sweet, young submissive such as yourself." With a vague sweeping wave of his hand the Italian gestured from Harry's feet to his bare chest, reducing his worth to a warm body filled to the brim with iridescent magic.

It made Harry's blood boil and rise into his cheeks and he made a jerky, abrupt step forward, before the realisation of his helplessness set in again. How he hated those mirror connections right now, hated that he couldn't raise his magic around him as coldly gleaming swords, long, sharp spears and heavy, spiked maces and show him how very much not submissive Harry was, how deadly an error it was to lay hands on those that Harry cared for so very much, whose presence in his life he valued and needed as a crucial part to his sanity. But his hands were hopelessly, tightly tied and in the cold, hard-edged knowledge of it, Harry's steps froze, having nothing to encounter the Italian's self-satisfaction with.

"Don't play games with me!" He growled bitterly, his helplessness and the humiliation at being described this way in front of his most trusted companions gnawing at him, etching at the friable façade about to crumble away from him. The fear of what his magic might do if he lost control, of what these men might do in retaliation was like a knife of frozen venom in his guts, searing, sickening, petrifying. He just wanted for all of this to end, just wanted to know Ron and Mione safely back in England and for this to never have happened.

But it had. And it was Harry's and the Slytherins fault for involving them when they had known how dangerous it might become even while placating them and downplaying the immediate danger. It was only right that Harry would accept the responsibility and fix it in whatever way he must.

How he wished he could dare to look at them now, reassure them that all would be well, that he'd take care of everything and not feel that horrible tinge of maddening uncertainty; but he didn't know if he would be lying and then there was that guilty knowledge that Ron would rather die than have Harry knowingly walk into a trap that might very well cost him his freedom. Hermione as well.  
He never wanted to see that kind of horror and guilt in their eyes, and surely those feelings would be there, dark shadows cast on the brightness of that burning flame and strength that made them unique.

And still, Harry would do anything. _Anything_. If only they lived.

The man nodded his acknowledgement, accepting that Harry's nerves were too raw to deal with anything but a direct approach; yet the pure insolence and defiance, the challenge in the submissive's every word seemed to incur his displeasure and the man's nostrils flared and his upper lip twitched in the smallest, vaguest hint of a snarl, before he proceeded in a cruelly detached tone of voice "I have a son, only eight years older than you. You will mate him."

Cruel but direct. Harry still preferred it to any vague hints and nebulous allusions. But Merlin, it was grotesque, the casualness in which he was being informed that he would practically marry a man eight years older than him – which would make him twenty-six. _Informed_ , not asked or ordered as if there were not the slightest possibility of his famous luck or any other fortunate circumstance or action of his preventing it from happening.

Harry swallowed past the dryness in his throat before banishing the disturbing thought from his mind with a determined shake of his head, stubbornly telling himself that it really didn't matter: if he couldn't get close to Ron and Hermione's kidnappers quickly enough to free his friends while avoiding a mating, he wouldn't allow his intended, whoever that turned out to be, to live long enough to abuse his magic.  
Harry couldn't hand a greedy, unscrupulous monster a weapon this powerful and let him live, couldn't allow another Dark Lord to arise, this time because of him.

If only Blaise and Draco might perhaps forgive him for the betrayal he was about to commit… but how could he expect them to, having promised them to stay at Lanai Manor and let them court him and be honest with his two kidnappers turned suitors. When he was turning his back on them after this wonderful day and crushing the vague notion of a future together, the vapour of an idea that, if he was honest with himself, was there in his mind; nothing more than a new-born dream obliterated and washed away by the breach of trust Harry was about to commit.

And that thought almost made his magic break out of his control, spreading into his muscles and mind, embedding itself in every fibre, urging and pushing to force him to search for the two dominants that might save him, but not his friends. The need, the overwhelming desire, was there but Harry could recognize the source now, could understand that the two Slytherins would not let him leave and do what he had to. He pushed it down, strangled it ruthlessly and wrapped it into more steely determination. No amount of wailing and lamenting would change anything.

Hermione and Ron might die if he sought out Draco and Blaise for help.

"Fine." Harry finally spat. "But it won't happen if you hurt my friends any further."

By that, the Italian didn't seem too bothered. "Since I am just as unwilling as you to see harm come to such fine wizards I think we will come to an agreement, don't you?"  
He flashed Harry another sharp-edged smile full of teeth. "For as long as you do what I say, your friends won't be hurt and you … won't have to go on a suicide mission. A win-win situation, is it not?"

Harry clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, swallowing the harsh words and curses and threats waiting impatiently at the tip of his tongue.

"And you will let them leave…"

"… As soon as you mated my son. "

Decidedly, Harry shook his head, venturing to take another glance at his fellow Gryffindors' still cringing forms but they didn't react to his or the man's words and Harry wondered if they had been deafened. A new wave of righteous anger flooded him as he gazed back at that much too neutral face.

This plan was entirely unacceptable. If this man had his way, Harry would have to give himself over and relinquish any last shreds of control he was currently possessing even before his friends were out of harm's way.

"No. An equal exchange! I'll come to you and you'll let them leave. _Immediately_."

"And have you apparate away the second they leave? I think not. And apropos apparition: before you do something rash and get a nasty surprise: do not try and apparate to your friends. We put them on a muggle vehicle traveling through the air. A plane, if I am not mistaken."

"Yes." Harry hissed, his eyes gleaming with an unholy, green fire.

"My apologies, I should have known that you would be more acquainted with those. But did you know, Mr Potter that it is impossible for a wizard or even House Elves to apparate onto a plane? Due to its speed and the, though very short, not neglectable travel time of apparition you would reappear behind the plane instead of in it and since the air temperature is so very low at such a height, you might actually not be able to raise your wings and fall to your death. A tragedy that would be very hard on my family. Alas, the one currently taking so excellent care of your companions might just go mad with grief and who knows what he might do then?"

Disbelievingly, Harry could do nothing but stare for a moment or two. He was being told not to commit suicide? He had never even thought of taking his life to resolve this whole mess. Not once!  
Slowly, he straightened up in one smooth movement, his spine stretching one vortex after the other, his shoulders squaring in proud defiance, his chin raising at last.

Yes, not even two months ago he had willingly walked into his own death, at peace with that lack of future because there had been no other option, no other way. His life force had been entangled too tightly with that evil snake and to kill the one meant to kill the other, too.  
Suicide had been an acceptable solution then, the only one.

But damn it, Harry wanted to live! For so many reasons that someone in his position couldn't really name but knew to be there nonetheless; someone fighting with the deep rooting despair, the claustrophobic oppression caused by walls of tribulation, fear and helplessness closing in. When the past seems to fade away like the consciousness of someone drowning and the mind is unable to focus on anything but the current situation.  
There were faces and impressions and fleeting images and odours hovering behind his thoughts, Draco's kiss and Blaise's lips, arms around him and Ginny's roguish laughter, Hermione's eye-roll when she thought he and Ron were especially dumb, feathers not his own caressing his skin, the wind in his hair while flying, the fresh sweet smell of ozone after a storm…

All things worth living for.

No, Harry didn't plan on dying. Didn't even ponder what he might do if it came to a situation where he had to decide between his friends' and his own life because that would imply the possibility of such an ending and he refused to believe that the probability was above zero.

"Wouldn't want that." He murmured with a painful smirk. "I won't try to apparate to them. And I won't apparate away from you, I wouldn't even know how to with my wand still in Britain. But I will only give myself over once I know that my friends are free and well."

The Italian shook his head, the dark eyes drilling into Harry with the intentness of a hawk.  
"After the mating." He insisted, his tone still polite but each word a rigid and inflexible statement of tenacity and persistence in and on itself.

"With no guarantee that you would free them afterwards? No!" Harry argued vigorously. "The way I see it, I am the only trustworthy person around here, since, out of the two of us, I am not the one with a history of kidnapping and Merlin knows what else!"

With a sigh the dominant Vykélari in the mirror unclasped the hands he had held behind his back the whole time, a gesture that shouldn't really be threatening, but was. Nervously, Harry watched as the thin fingers crept like spiders towards the wand holster at the man's side. But it wasn't opened.  
"I see that those useless two dominants were rather lenient with you. Well, let me explain your position, then, sottomesso, I don't think you really understand."

With a cruel glint in his onyx eyes, he took a step towards the mirror, and with it Harry, tilting his head like a vulture eyeing its prey. "I control your best friends' very future," he drawled, his voice infinitely colder, "I hold their very life in my hand and it would do them well if you were a bit more mindful of that fact. Beyond that, you should start exercising the demureness and obedience of your kind. This defiance will not be tolerated."

It took a moment until Harry noticed his nails digging painfully into the palms of his tightly clenched fist; and yet a while longer until he could get his fingers to straighten out once again. Oh, how he was sick of these dominants thinking they had the right to control him, sick of them seemingly believing that the inheritance had changed his character and gave them the questionable right to put a label on him. Even Blaise and Draco had thought that way, still did to a certain extent, never truly believing him to be capable of protecting himself. A week ago he had been a war hero, damn it!

The rage he felt over that injustice filled his very being, ripping through his chest like a knife, squelching every voice of caution and thusly loosening his tongue until words spilled forth that never would have left his mouth if not for the combined agitation at this whole fraught situation and the Italian's harsh words.  
"I might be a submissive Vykélari but I submit to no one! And I hold your very future in my hand: besides absolutely being able to overpower and kill you I would only need to go to the authorities with a pensieve memory of this and have your ass thrown into prison!"

This time, Harry knew he had gone too far even though he wouldn't for the life of him be able to say what made him realise this overstepping of invisible boundaries. The other man didn't flinch, didn't snarl or glare at him, his posture was unchanged as he stared at him for long moments in complete and utter silence, quiet and motionless yet ominous and oppressive like the literal calm before the storm.  
Maybe it was that chilling silence when there should have been further reprimands or threats.

"Well, then…" he said finally without a care in the world, uncharacteristically friendly "I guess I don't have anything to lose anymore, do I? I might as well enjoy myself for now…"

And his cold gaze turned away from Harry, sweeping over Hermione's and Ron's forms on the ground of the plane towards something hidden from the Gryffindor's view outside of the mirror's frame behind his friends.

Suddenly a surprisingly loud droning snapped into existence, sounds and noises from within the plane that had previously been quietened by privacy charms becoming audible again. The deep buzz of the aero engines and the rushing wind outside, and little, heart wrenching sobs and whimpers that he had never heard any of his two friends utter before and hoped, begged anything or anyone that might be listening, never to have to again.

Then the real nightmare began, triggered by a simple, neutral "Crucio", murmured with the bored voice of an announcer at a train station.

For a moment Harry didn't know who had been hit for both Hermione and Ron started screaming, one shrill and full of terror, one a bit deeper but not less horrifying, together it was a cacophony that speared Harry with the destructive power of an expulso, digging itself deep into his chest and ripping at his heart with sharp, tearing claws, leaving him breathless and cringing.

And Ron convulsed on the ground, writhing with the all-overpowering agony of the curse, shouting and screaming himself horse in seconds, past all sanity and coherence. Next to him Hermione rocked herself back and forth, hands covering her ears and eyes clenched shut tightly against this horror scenario while she screamed and screamed and it was so incomprehensible, so unreal. It must be a nightmare…

Harry's magic erupted out of him, finally escaping his control or, more accurately his control vanishing in the face of the torture of his best friend. It raised and whirled around him, whipping about and cutting through the air in the search for his enemy, beating against the mirror in a useless attempt to get through.   
There was no warmth this time, no sparkling sensations calming him and cradling him, only angry, overwhelming fear and _need_ , the need to do something, to act, even though Harry knew he couldn't.

"STOP!" Harry shouted, loud and raw, horror clogging his voice. "Stop it!"

But the Italian only looked down at him – and when had he fallen to his knees? – and Harry knew he wouldn't, could see it in the darkness there of those onyx eyes that this devil would really stop at nothing to get his submission and … anything. Anything, if only… Ron and Mione…  
"I'll do it! Please stop, I'll do it – I'll do it!" He begged through the storm of his magic that had started to rip apart the curtains that had covered the two-way-mirror, that accursed thing, until all there was left were fine threads whirling around in a maelstrom of creams and whites with Harry at its centre.

Tears ran down from his burning eyes as finally, finally an eerie silence settled again, the privacy spells up once more and he could see Ron's convulsions stop, leaving him shivering and trembling on the ground and Hermione, sweet, strong Mione still rocking herself at his side, but her cracked lips thankfully closed.

Slowly he managed to reign in the energy streaming from his body and gradually the pale threads sank to the ground, forming a perfect circle around him.

The fright and shock was still weighting down on him as Harry looked up to the Italian an eternity later, who seemed so much darker now for what he had done and even while Harry gazed into those cold, stony eyes and listened to the orders he was given, he knew that he would end up killing him. As certainly as he had known that he would be the one to kill Voldemort.  
Because such a man could not be allowed access to the vast amount of magic frizzling under Harry's skin.  



	23. The Second Attempt

Unaware of the drama taking its course only a few rooms further down the corridor from their own, Blaise unbuttoned his shirt, carelessly dropping it unto the pile of crumpled dress robes as he contemplated his lover, finally, finally understanding (and at least partly sharing) the obsessive fascination he had with the Gryffindor Golden Boy.

To be truthful, Blaise had, in the first years of their long internment in Hogwarts, mistaken Draco's obsession with the prodigy that was Harry James Potter with the jealous rage of a child used to be the centre of interest wherever he went, and to the not less powerful and destructive force of the pure boredom of a young, restless mind.

Then, as the years went on and he learned to read the fine nuances of Draco's expressions that the blonde could not yet successfully supress he had theorized, not incorrectly, that the resentment of the Malfoy heir had sprouted from quite a different seed and it was in no way the envy at the boy's fame; though this had been used as a source for mockery often enough, it had been mostly because Harry himself was so obviously uncomfortable with all the interest in his person, making him an easy target.

No, it was the complete disregard of a well-known _hero_ , a boy whose emotional maturity, sense of justice and self-confidence made him stand aloof of the masses even though he was so painfully unaware of his fame and standing. The disregard of someone who was otherwise almost ridiculously generous with his affection and friendship, befriending a Weasley, for heaven's sake! Blood-traitors and mudbloods whose only redeeming qualities – at first glance – were their Gryffindor loyalty and braveness that bordered on stupidity…

Even though… if Harry had been in Slytherin, if he had befriended Draco and Pansy and Blaise instead of Granger and Weasley, he would not have lived long enough to see his 222nd full moon. It was the unadorned truth, nothing more and nothing less. And what a humbling, shameful truth it was; one of the sobering few (but considering his blood status surprisingly numerous) reasons of his budding respect for Harry's friends, next to Granger's obvious brilliance and the few glimpses of a tactical, sharp mind Weasley had occasionally shown.

The acrimonious taste in his mouth resulted from the fact that Blaise himself had all but abandoned his lover when Draco had refused to give up his parents and declare himself neutral, had wanted to seek fame and recognition in the Dark Lord's ranks. Therefore rationality and logic left him without even the faintest, merciful illusion that he might have stood by Harry and risked his life so that a friend, maybe a love interest, would survive instead. Blaise Zabini simply wasn't that kind of a man…  
Pansy was a humanity opportunist, it was a miracle that she had even gone to the pains of lending Harry's friends her most beloved mirror without any obvious benefits. And Draco … Draco would never have betrayed his parents.

Granger and Weasley on the other hand had stayed loyal and supportive – the two occasions the redhead had mentioned aside – and had been there for their friend when he had needed them the most. All the while Blaise had stood on the sidelines, watching the war almost destroy the one wonderful thing in his life: Draco. Of course he had had the emergency portkeys made, but his attempts to give one to his lover had been too tentative and cautious, and in their unsuccessfulness the gesture had lost its meaning.

How unfathomable, how grotesque that they – the scions and sole heirs of two of the proudest bloodlines in all of Britain, who belonged to the best of their year at Hogwarts, who had received the gift of the Vykélari inheritance and thus had proof of their magical prowess – should be less worthy of a young wizard's friendship and affection, than a mudblood and a blood-traitor.

But the notion had speared itself into his mind and never quite left him alone ever since Harry had, in that magical grove under the warm midday sun, given them glimpses into his earlier adventures, told with a carelessness only made possible because they had miraculously not ended in death and disaster and their terror had been surpassed by far by the hardships he had gone through during the last years and especially the war.

And though Blaise had soon called the story-telling to an end by pulling out the teatro del pensiero, he couldn't help but contemplate it every now and then during the rest of the day while he and Draco had basked in Harry's presence, in his unbridled exuberance, his genuine joy, the smallest smiles and broadest grins, the easy-going laughter and liveliness. Even his exasperation and embarrassment.  
Like a rare delicacy he was that Blaise found himself indulging in and growing addicted to, a longed-for distraction from the sometimes all too stifling company of his usual peers, the usual tokens on a worn chessboard that Blaise had amused himself with on occasion and secretly grown tired of. And once the desire was awoken, it couldn't be left unsatisfied.

Now Blaise wasn't humble enough to capitulate and leave the man he started to want so strongly to someone truly worthy of his affections – in the doubtable case such a person even did exist – not if he himself could become that man instead.

This finally, Blaise mused, might be the fascination and the true source of Draco's obsession: that inner power Harry held to make people try and improve themselves and the world for him. And the blonde's hate and resentment that rooted deeply in Harry's refusal to even acknowledge him as someone of the smallest importance despite his bloodline and everyone else already thinking of him like that, was probably cemented even further by his inability to follow through with it and gain the recognition and appreciation of the Golden Boy and be acknowledged and seen by any- and everyone as a worthy equal to him.

Now though, they could – might – achieve that and Merlin, how Blaise _wanted_ to.

But…

He first had to fulfil the herculean task of convincing Draco that there was a necessity for a change. His sometimes all too stubborn lover who at that moment started to sneak his arms around his shoulders, pressing his chest to Blaise's back and pulling him out of his musings.

"It amazes me that you still find things to brood over after such a day." Draco murmured quietly into his ear with a hint of laughter in his voice before breaking away completely again as if he couldn't bear to stay still.  
"By Morgaine!" He exclaimed and closed his eyes with an expression of pure relish. "I understand what you meant when you said you'd never have problems with your Patronus again after that kiss. Honestly, his magic is _wicked_ and Harry totally knows how to use it, the little devil… he had way too much fun, I could tell."

Blaise hummed a vague, distracted affirmative that earned him a sharp look. "So what is it?"

The blonde tilted his head and regarded him with a frown while Blaise still tried to find the right words. Asking whether Draco had ever wondered whether they were worthy of someone like Harry certainly wouldn't go down well, besides, it wasn't quite what Blaise meant either. There was no doubt in his mind that they were worthy of him – no, rather that they _could_ be worthy of him, they just … hadn't been. So far.

"Or has it something to do with what happened at the ruins? Whatever was that about?"

Blaise almost smiled to himself. Of course Draco had noticed something bothering him, he should have known and expected him to satisfy his curiosity at some point. Well, at least it made explaining easier now.

"In a way." He said evasively, partly in answer to Draco's first question. Then, deciding to just press on and deal with the consequences if and when they arose, he tilted his head curiously, taking in every hitch in his lover's smooth façade that might be indicative of his mood.

"Have you ever forgiven him for not taking your hand that first day on the Hogwarts Express?"

The question took his lover by surprise: there was a curious twitch in Draco's expression, a miniscule hardening before it smoothed out into nothingness. A quietness beneath which he had ignited more than a spark of anger, Blaise suspected.

"Do we have to speak of this now?" The 'or ever' rang clearly with the annoyance in his tone. "Don't ruin a beautiful day with something as inconsequential as this. Besides: it is late, we should…"

" _You_ should _forgive_ him." Blaise insisted quietly.

Draco shook his head wearily and turned to head towards their bed. "We were only children, Blaise, I have already forgiven him. Let it go."

"Not because of that reason…" Blaise stated, shaking his head. "You should forgive him, because it was maybe a wise decision. He wouldn't have survived with us at his side, Draco. He would have died long before even reaching the age of his inheritance."  
Perhaps that was a bit blunt, but Draco could be so very stubborn if he wanted to, and the long years of friendship and more with the young Malfoy scion had taught him that critic always had to be delivered in a direct way lest it be ignored completely.

Pale hands clenched in the satiny bed sheets, white knuckles contrasting sharply with the dark green and grey fabric.  
"You don't know that." Draco hissed without looking up.

"Draco!" Blaise huffed impatiently, though some part of him registered that this was a much harsher reaction than he had initially expected. Nonetheless he had a point to make, and he was right, so…  
"If he had accepted your friendship instead of Weasley's, if you had brought him into our circles of purebloods and rich, he would have been abandoned at the first sighting of the Dark Lord and undoubtedly he would have been killed. Neither you nor I nor any of the others would have risked our lives, our family's lives for him."  
The very notion was ridiculous: In contrast to all the muggleborns and halfbloods and bloodtraitors they had had nothing to gain from Harry's victory – not until the Dark Lord had shown the true extend of his madness. It had only promised a loss of the values they held dear and their influence in the wizarding world.

In spite of what Blaise conceived as an undeniable truth, the blonde whirled around and Blaise almost drew back in surprise, rarely having seen his lover as angry as this. The silver eyes had darkened to a stormy grey and the lean pale fingers were bent to strike, nails growing into sharp claws. A crown of feathers rose from his platinum blonde hair, imposing and threatening in their show of dominance, gleaming in the pale light to show off his magical strength.  
Blaise could feel the need to counter it but with a minor mental struggle he resisted. There was nothing to be gained by provoking his lover even further.

"Many Slytherins fought on his side during the last stand at Hogwarts, Blaise! If they had known him for years, befriended him… they would have fought with him from much earlier on! It's unfair to judge them like this. It is unfair to judge _me_ like this! Only because _you_ …"  
The words – that seemed to have surprised even Draco, for he didn't dare to continue and the thin, sharp feathers in his hair flattened down against his skull – cut down clankingly into the suddenly freezing night air between them, hanging there like crystalline blades, sharp and deadly and mocking.

Blaise felt his eyes flee to the side, unable to hold that silver gaze that was judging him ruthlessly in one moment and then faltered, broke with a strangely fragile, hesitant uncertainty as if its owner was terribly afraid of what these words, spoken in a moment of thoughtless anger, might have done to the dark skinned Italian, to _them_.

"I'm not… I didn't…" Blaise fell silent when he realised how badly he was stuttering, how at a loss for anything to say he was. The genuine, passionate outrage that had literally exploded into his face had stunned him beyond reason.

He hadn't meant to pass judgement on his lover, not more so than on himself at least. It was only meant as a statement, a remark, a reason to change: just a goad, nothing more. And yet, it was the truth, wasn't it? Pansy, Theodore, Goyle and Crabbe and … and he, Blaise… and Draco.  
Every single one of their little group would still have followed the Dark Lord or – in Blaise's case – remained neutral, wouldn't they? The fact that Goyle and Crabbe had turned against Draco during the last stand and that Blaise, Theo and Pansy had fled at the earliest convenience (though of course, they had thought that Draco was somewhere among the evacuated Slytherins) should be proof enough.

Draco would have forsaken Harry just as easily and quickly as he had been forsaken.

But even before he could finish that thought, a feint stab of insecurity made Blaise's gut churn suddenly. Or would he?

If Blaise was entirely truthful, he had to admit that Draco had never abandoned a friend, never in his life; of course he had never had to face such a decision, all his friends having been on his side of the war or at least neutral, carefully chosen individuals that mostly followed his rule without question or doubt until they had all abandoned him during his fall from grace.

No, in contrast to Blaise, Draco had never been put to the test and neither of the two lovers could honestly claim to know for certain how the young Malfoy heir might have decided, no one could. Because to risk your very life for a friend was one of those enormous, life-changing deeds – like murder – that only life could prove you incapable or capable of.

The realisation that he had been tested and had _failed_ , was as sudden as it was nauseating.  
But … Hadn't Draco left him first – why hadn't he declared himself neutral when Blaise had asked him to?

Only that Blaise knew that it wasn't a fair comparison: Draco had had his parents to think of and he had known that he and the name of his once illustrious family would have lost any social standing they might still possess, any influence, forever pushed out of the limelight and right off the stage of politics and life and disregarded from then on, had he not joined a side in the war.  
Blaise had known of his lover's ambitious character, wouldn't have fallen in love with him if he was any different. It hadn't been fair to ask him in the first place.

In front of him Draco sighed, a sound so tired and frustrated that it tore at Blaise like a squall and suddenly he was afraid of losing him – not to war and death this time but to a mistake that he hadn't acknowledged, hadn't rectified in time.

"Draco," he pleaded a bit hoarsely, taking a hesitant step towards the blonde, "you know that I love you, right?"

Wearily, Draco folded back the blankets and sat down, but his voice still held a hint of sharpness as he spoke, like the grinding of knives. "I know, Blaise."

"It was not… I never…" Blaise licked his lips, at a loss of what to say, how to portray what he meant.  
"I never questioned, never doubted that you'd be there for me, if I needed you." He finally said. It was the truth, though Blaise had rarely thought about it, confident in his ability to overcome most of his problems himself. 'Please believe me…'

With a humourless snort, Draco faced him, letting him see the acidic anger still raging in his eyes. "Is that so? It definitely sounded different a minute ago."

It made Blaise's heart pound in his chest, in his throat. God, they hadn't had a row so severe since … since they had gone different ways in their sixth year. How could it have come to this? Blaise had thought the war behind them, had been, and still was, so sure that Draco and he belonged together and that there were no misgivings between them over what had happened in the past. Otherwise, he wouldn't have proposed. They had both been fools those past few years, but should that really be allowed to shape their whole future? "I didn't mean …"

"Oh, you didn't mean it like that?" Draco raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, a hint of mocking tinging his voice and Blaise had never heard it like this, so full of bitterness and hurt and accusation. Then it picked up both in passion and in volume and he stood again, unable to stay seated on the bed.

"Didn't mean that I was a spineless coward without a sense of loyalty? I was trying to save my _life_ , Blaise and that of my family! I tried to keep us all alive and I really won't apologize for not caring how I did that or at what price or who'd fall by the wayside, but nothing I did was on the expense of my friends! I never turned on any of you. Never."

"Not like me." Blaise concluded the tirade, biting his lip. "I'm sorry, Draco. I wasn't there when you needed me, when I should have been. And I'm sorry."

Immediately, the blond deflated, all the aggressiveness and anger leaving him in a rush. Then he threw his head back tiredly, staring at the ceiling in silence for many, agonizingly long moments. "Damn, Blaise…" he muttered and ran a hand over his face, "I told you to let it rest."

"Obviously I did that for much too long." Blaise answered, finally daring to take a few steps towards his lover. God, how he wanted to just hug him tight, ensuring himself that Draco would be there, even when Narcissa, Amalyne and Lucius were untrustworthy bastards, even when they couldn't rely on their peers. He couldn't do this without Draco, care for Harry and keep him safe. Or do much of anything else, for that matter.  
If the war had taught him anything, then that he didn't want to live without this stubborn, prideful, egoistical idiot.

Draco smiled humourlessly. "I understood, you know? In a way. Somehow you realised much sooner than I where this whole mess with the Dark Lord was heading. And you couldn't have dissuaded me, I was so intent on gaining back my family's honour, _my_ honour and achieve what Adler once did. And then I was just in too deep."  
With a rare, genuinely grave expression, Draco turned to him. "I don't think I could have watched you head for your own ruin either. I never blamed you for doing what you did."

Relieved, Blaise felt his shoulders relax. It wasn't an absolution, but it was an understanding and that was enough. They both had their fair share of accumulated mistakes and they had accepted each other's faults long ago; it was good to know that this argument had not been about long past transgressions. It wouldn't bode well for them and their relationship, if they started to hold their mistakes against each other.

Besides, Blaise could admit that it had been more than just insensible to imply that his lover might readily commit a sin of this magnitude when he had never done anything of the like before. That would rouse many much more quiet tempers, especially when the accuser was throwing stones from inside the literal glass house. And Draco Malfoy, if anything, was a very prideful man. Still, Blaise had never actually apologized for his cowardice, never acknowledged it within or outside of the silence of his mind and his fiancé deserved to hear the words at least once more.

Therefore, Blaise carefully reached out to squeeze his lover's, his fiancé's hand. "I nonetheless should have been there."

Draco released some of his tenseness with a long, deep breath. "Yeah, Maybe…"

For a few moments he remained silent, his one free hand gliding over the luxuriously smooth fabric of the bed cover, before he gave Blaise a long sideway glance out of the corners of his eyes and conceded with a voice far too sober and dry to be mistaken with remorse "maybe I shouldn't have tried to raise your jealousy with Pansy's help in revenge."

Laughing, Blaise shook his head and pulled his lover closer. "I was so angry…"

"I know," Draco smirked, "that's why I did it."

"Sometimes I hate how much I love you." Blaise smiled slowly, closing his arms around his lover's waist, warmth and content suffusing him, and he would have leaned in and kissed him, if not at this very moment a little House Elf had appeared right next to them with a quiet popping sound.

It was a young female Elf, covered in the remains of a pale curtain with dark edging, her eyes rolling in the overly large sockets from left to right, from Blaise to Draco. Fidgety she seemed and anxious as she wrung her long-fingered hands, her drooping bat-like ears trembling.

Blaise immediately recognized her: it was the young Elf that Harry had tricked into sending the letter to his friends. The female, Giallina, had confessed to her involvement later on under many tears and much wailing when Blaise and Draco had already known of Harry's deed.  
Though he had refrained from punishing her (more because of Harry's wishes than anything else) or maybe because of his leniency, the little Elf had thrown herself into the task of watching over Harry with an almost obsessive fervour, and had planned to continue even after Blaise had officially told his servants that there was no need for any more observations and that, for as long as Harry wasn't in danger, he wasn't to be denied anything. Only if his safety was at risk, his staff had the permission to force Harry away from the threat.

But driven by her guilt and the wish to rectify her mistake, Giallina had asked to be allowed to keep at least one eye on their guest whenever her duties allowed it, especially during those times when the Gryffindor was alone. She had therefore been the obvious choice when Blaise had to decide on a House Elf to give to Ives. It relieved her from her usual duties and gave her more time to see to Harry's safety, a task she took very seriously, more so than maybe any other Elf in his employ. Besides, she was of a very gentle nature and he thought both Harry and Ives would be comfortable with her.

Now though, a darkly ominous feeling crept over Blaise's chest, knowing that the only duty this Elf had was keeping Harry safe and serving Ives' every order. It must have been three o'clock in the morning, and so it could only be a matter of grave importance that had brought the Elf into her masters' rooms at such an hour. He wasn't disappointed.

"Master Blaise!" She cried shrilly, reminding him uncomfortably of the keening of a gull. "Master Blaise! Master Harry Potter is being forced to leave the manor!"  
Large, fat tears of fright rolled down her cheeks and the poor thing pressed her fingers into her cheek bones as she delivered the terrible news.

For a moment, Blaise could do nothing but stare into those absurdly large, red-rimmed eyes, uncomprehending how this day, this wonderful day, had gone from perfect to bad with the row with Draco only to become wonderful again with Draco's forgiveness and now take a turn to the worst with the latest development.  
How could an enemy have reached Harry here in Lanai Manor, the home of his deceased father and his own refuge? How? How could anyone find the unholy means to blackmail Harry Potter, the vanquisher of the Dark Lord, to anything he didn't want? It was surreal, a notion that fought with claws and teeth against being understood and ingrained into his thinking.

Draco reacted quicker. With an incredible swiftness he was past the Elf and almost at the door already, summoning his recently discarded robe in midstride and calling out harshly "Where, Elf?"

Giallina flinched at the ominous tone of voice of her master's fiancé but she didn't hesitate to point a trembling finger in a roughly eastern direction. "The manor's front, master!"

She hadn't finished the sentence when Draco was already gone. Pale but determined Blaise made to follow him but he stopped for a moment longer as a terrible thought struck him. By Morgaine, hadn't Draco and he said just the last morning that there was only one thing that might rob Harry of his level-headedness and make him rush into danger unthinkingly? What if someone was blackmailing him using that very thing – or rather, those very persons?

In that case it might be two dominants against one heavily determined submissive and trying to stop the Gryffindor when he has brimming with magic and intent on leaving was like trying to keep a dragon from its hatchlings. If Harry really wanted to leave, they had almost no chance of keeping him from it, not in an open, fair confrontation.

But damn him, if he allowed someone to harm Harry, to force him into … he had vowed that he wouldn't let that happen!

So any confrontation between the Gryffindor and them couldn't be open, and it couldn't be fair… They would need help.

Thus resolved, Blaise clapped into his hands sharply, calling all his staff together once more. Even in the middle of the night, when most of them had to have been resting, they came immediately, popping into existence in the large bedroom, over twenty pairs of glowing, huge eyes trained on his form and waiting for instructions.

For a moment, Blaise assessed the number of the small creatures that with their short legs and too long arms seemed so unsuited to take on a young Vykélari. But he had heard the stories of the Battle of Hogwarts from the lips of direct witnesses, had read the gruesome reports and he knew of his servants' worth. A group so large might still not be a match for the average submissive, but with the moment of surprise on their side and with Harry still so painfully untrained and probably not in his right mind, Blaise was confident that they would be able to take him on nonetheless. They had to!

Quickly Blaise made out the tall form of his head House Elf, Alfar, who had apparated right in front of him as one of the first Elves to arrive. Sleep still crusted the corners of his eyes but he silently waited for his master's orders with all the due attention and alertness and without questioning the situation.

"Take all the House Elves and see to it that Harry doesn't leave the grounds and that no one gets in!" Blaise ordered, his tone mirroring the severity of the situation.   
"Draco and I will distract him while you surround him and when I call your name, Alfar, you are to stun him. Only you!" He repeated emphatically. The last he wanted right now was injuring Harry with the force of too many stunners. The accumulated effect of these kinds of spells could be rather nasty, after all.  
"And all you others: whatever happens, don't let him leave the grounds. But you may only use stunners yourself when Alfar has failed."

* * *

  
Draco felt as if he was walking through water. His muscles worked furiously, tensing and flexing as he ran down the long corridors spreading out in front of him like endless tunnels in which only his rugged breathing and the echoing drumming of his feet reverberated back and forth but however much he pushed himself he didn't seem to be moving fast enough, his body caught in a distortion of the time continuum while his mind raced.

Forward, forward!

Around a sudden corner, along another corridor, the artful wallpaper rushing past him in an endless blur of shadowed beiges and thank god that Blaise's manor was spacious enough to allow for wide, wide hallways where he didn't need to dodge any furniture! He was almost at the stairs.

And still he wasn't fast enough! Harry might already have left the wards and then…  
There was no doubt in him that it wasn't by his own free will that Harry was leaving: damn, only fifteen minutes ago the Gryffindor had kissed him with all that he was, passionately, insistently…

Mordred, FASTER!

He could still feel the pressure sore of those soft lips upon his, that powerful magic flowing through his body like a summer storm, leaving his nerves raw and oversensitive. Could still hear that sweet, embarrassed laughter tinkling through his veins, from when Blaise and he had carried the Gryffindor between them on that floating platform of the Palazzo di Vetro, pretending to dance while enjoying the excuse to hold Harry closer, feeling the warmth of his body through the clothes with which they had dressed him. He had smelled so familiar, felt so right. Now, the memory made his stomach cramp painfully. Harry was on the verge of dropping out of their lives!

Damn it, not now! This couldn't be happening just now!

From the corner of his eyes Draco noticed the window in passing, a wide surface of glass intermitted only by the numerous glazing bars; an idea pushed to the forefront of his mind with the force of a giant and Draco skidded over the smooth tiles to a sudden standstill. The hallway behind him was dark and therefore didn't reflect Draco and his surroundings, instead it offered him, as he quickly stepped closer, a clear view of the manor's front garden with its beautiful flower beds and the neatly and artfully cut hedges.

There, just past the circular drive, was Harry.

Of course it was dark, of course the figure there was nothing more than a sudden movement between shadows. But Draco would have recognized that gait anywhere. How often had he watched this boy sneak around the corridors of Hogwarts, leaning into the safety of walls and the veil of dark corners? Just as he was doing now.

With a flourish of his wand the glass was gone and another vanished the glazing bars. Quickly, Draco leaned over the window sill, hard and unforgiving beneath his fingers, while allowing his Vykélari magic to flood into his eyes, wishing for the sight of an owl. Colours vanished or dimmed from his vision, taking with them the darkness reigning the night and sharp and clear, the lean, long-legged form of his Gryffindor stood out from the pile of leaves belonging to the bush behind him.

An involuntary snarl left Draco and his claws raked over the wood of the windowsill, leaving deep scrapes in the paint. Harry was half naked, wearing only light footwear and no shirt at all, the elegant markings swirling and streaming down the sides of his torso for everyone to see. Only the thin fabric of his pyjama bottoms clung to his legs, at least partly covering him. The idea of someone else – another Vykélari dominant for that matter – to see him like this was intolerable, a barbed arrow in his chest.

"HARRY!" He shouted, his heart skipping a beat when the young man turned with a swift, abrupt step to the side that brought him from the darkness into the softest, faintest touch of light coming from one of the garden torches illuminating the driveway.

Draco could have sworn the moment lasted an eternity. Harry's hair flew in a wild disarray of raven blackness around his head, sharply pointed feathers gleaming in it like dark green glass shards, a glorious frame for the deathly paleness that was his face. The flames flickered, playing games and tricks on the tanned skin, making the markings around his eyes dance.

Those eyes that the velvety night had darkened to onyxes held his own gaze for this indefinite length of time, showing nothing but the shock of prey that had noticed a predator.  
But it wasn't fear, nor insecurity, only deep surprise and it was swiftly overcome. Draco could see the other's eyes narrow and his jaw clench tightly and he knew even before it happened, that Harry would bolt and run, run down the driveway and try to escape past the wards where – and it must be so, nothing else made sense – someone was waiting for him, someone who had given their Gryffindor no choice in the matter.

It wasn't to be borne!

The moment Harry started to move, Draco agilely propelled himself forward and out of the window as if he had waited for the other to give him a start signal and perhaps he had, perhaps he had wished and hoped against hope that the brunet might wait and stay long enough for him and Blaise to figure out how to solve this latest problem. But there was no time to contemplate the little sting of disappointment in his chest now at seeing Harry turn away with steely determination.

Draco fell.

For the split of a second he fell, before the robe that he had thrown over hastily ripped behind his back messily, Draco's mind too intent on the man running away from him to achieve neat cuts; and his wings fanned out in a flurry of pale, white-golden and silver feathers, spreading to their impressive span of at least seven metres and catching his fall.

Blood and wind rushing in his ears, Draco pushed forward, violently beating with his wings with more force than he ever had, only that one purpose in mind: reaching Harry before he could reach the end of that path!

Only a few seconds parted him from the running young man, some fifteen metres, nothing more! So close and Draco felt his heart beat faster with the exertion and the relief. Everything was going to be okay, if he could just reach Harry – they'd deal with everything else later, he and Blaise would deal with it…

To his dismay though, the Gryffindor didn't come any closer, no, the distance between them only increased!  
It shouldn't have been possible: Harry was only _running_ , not taking to the air because there in the black nocturnal sky Draco was the more experienced one and wings were much more difficult to handle than brooms; he would be able to outfly the submissive before he had achieved enough height. By Morgaine and Mordred and the great Merlin himself, Harry shouldn't be able to run faster than Draco was flying, it was a physical impossibility. And yet…

Then sudden understanding hit Draco with the force of the Hogwarts express, taking a hold of him and clenching down over his chest, ice-cold and merciless: he remembered keenly how Harry had flown for the first time, how he had spread his feathery appendages and climbed into the sky above the manor's grounds, flying like one possessed; the young submissive had pushed his magic into his muscles to an extent that no normal wizard and no unmated dominant would ever be able to achieve, ever understand, enabling him to fly faster and longer.  
Now, the young Vykélari was using his inheritance to his advantage once again and Draco couldn't keep pace. He _couldn't_!

"Harry! Stop, Harry!" Draco called out pleadingly, desperation rattling in his voice, but the Gryffindor didn't turn. Harry just kept on running away.

His hawthorn wand clenched tightly in his hand, Draco knew that there was little he could do short of hexing the other man. But would he even succeed, was it at all possible? Not only was Harry like the brightly flaring sun compared to the softly shining moon in terms of their magical power, but he also – technically speaking – held the allegiance of Draco's wand, the same magical tool he had taken from the Malfoy heir by force during his escape from the manor, only to return it after the war in a personal offer of peace…  
Given by the rightful owner the wand had continued to work just as well as it ever had during his usual spell-work but the link to Harry most likely wasn't broken yet, not when Draco had never properly reclaimed it.

This beautifully crafted piece of wood with the unicorn hair embedded deeply within, the trusted friend that had served him so well for so many years… it might refuse to be raised against the Golden Gryffindor who had won it for any kind of offensive magic, even if it was to save him. Hopefully, though, it would allow non-offensive spells.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

"Levicorpus!" Draco murmured as silently as possible while still loud enough to pronounce the incantation carefully and correctly, lest Harry might hear him and be alerted.

A moment later, Harry was hit by a flashing light directly between the shoulder blades that violently ripped from his feet. For a moment genuine joy and gladness bubbled up within Draco at this small concession of the lady Fortuna but it was dampened soon after by the gruesome sight his successful spellwork invoked: Harry's feet were pulled out from under him, forwards and up so quickly that his head never touched the rough gravel of the driveway, and he was wrenched into the air so abruptly that he barely had the time for a surprised outcry.  
Disoriented and helpless he swung back and forth from the force of the spell for a few seconds where he hung suspended a few metres over the ground, a bundle of flailing limbs that exuded tenseness and desperation so thickly Draco thought he might be able to cut it.

Then, as he saw Draco flying towards him he immediately started cursing and swearing, writhing and struggling uselessly so that the loose pant legs of his pyjamas slid down, exposing naked skin and lean, firm muscles.

Torn between relief and guilt, Draco flew towards him at a more sedate pace, keeping his wand trained on the violently moving body to keep him in the air. Merlin, he hadn't meant to shock him like this but Draco hadn't known what else to do: A body-bind or stunning spell, even if he could have successfully performed it, would undoubtedly have caused the Gryffindor to fall face first to the gravel covered ground and at the speed Harry had been running, that could have seriously injured him.

But judging from the way Harry was flashing his eyes at him somewhat fiercely during his struggles, this wouldn't be forgotten with a smile and a simple apology. Draco heaved a deep sigh as he started to lower Harry closer to the ground.

Suddenly, Harry went still and Draco could see the muscles of his stomach and his ribcage working, drawing in a deep breath, then another as if in preparation for a great exertion before Harry reared up, bending his torso backwards so that he was facing away from his captor. In the same moment the green wings spread away from him, starting to beat even before they were fully grown.

And Harry cut the Levicorpus charm.

Draco could feel it as it happened, his wand giving a tiny jerk in his tight grip as his spell was brutally crushed and ripped apart by Harry's magic that flared around his body, seemingly setting the Gryffindor on flames like a white burning torch.

Instead of falling, like Draco had half expected him to, the Gryffindor rushed forward without losing a metre of height, gliding on his wings with the grace of a vulture and the nimbleness of a goshawk, leaving the young dominant Vykélari behind, helpless to do anything as he continued towards the boundaries of Blaise's land.

"Harry!" Draco yelled, his voice ringing out in the otherwise silent night, and again with even more desperation when he was ignored but with as little success. Harry was leaving the manor and it seemed as if there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

  
Blaise had Alfar apparate him directly onto the porch on the front side of the manor where the sudden darkness enfolded him like a cool velvet cloak and for a moment, the only thing he could say for sure was that Harry, and also Draco, were nowhere on the torch-lit driveway. His heartbeat set out for one excruciatingly long second only to return with a vengeance while his eyes swept restlessly over the neat park, searching frantically for any movement that might betray his lover's or their submissive's whereabouts but coming up dauntingly blank. Had they already come too late?

But just as he saw and heard the other House Elves appear in a line along the eastern wards a scream ripped through the air, chilling him to the core.

Draco! That was Draco shouting Harry's name!

Lead by his lover's voice, Blaise's eyes found the dark silhouettes of the two Vykélari as they rushed over the night sky, two enormous shadows obscuring the stars as they flew eastwards. Damn, they were so close to the wards already!

"Master?" Alfar asked from his side, large eyes switching from him to Harry and Blaise didn't know what to answer: stunning him in the air – too close to the ground to safely levitate him especially considering his reckless speed yet too far from it that a fall would not injure him severely – was madness and something he hadn't contemplated when giving his instructions to the House Elves.  
And while Harry was conscious and in full possession of his magic he would cast off almost any spell that attempted to bind him or keep him back or even slow him down.

The only thing that might stop Harry now while not risking his life was the influence of a dominant's magic but the submissive needed to be able to see or feel it…

A reckless idea came to his mind, too bold and too hazardous for his liking, he who had always avoided any kind of brawl or fight, but he couldn't think of anything else and there was so little time left…

"Don't let us fall!" He ordered and hoped by Merlin Alfar would know what he meant, what he was to do.

Then he apparated directly in front and above the Gryffindor's form. A small moment of nausea and disorientation from the short travel incapacitated him for a moment, the sensation made worse by the sudden loss of a solid ground beneath his feet and the sense of direction as he started to fall.

But he had calculated the distance and Harry's speed correctly and with staggering force and a pained grunt from the younger Vykélari they collided, Blaise dashing with his stomach against one of the wing roots, the impact of such violence that it robbed him of his breath and pushed Harry into a lopsided position, and the Gryffindor was too inexperienced a flier to be able to recover right away.  
Immediately the Italian started sliding down along Harry's naked back, in his stupor unable to find any purchase as the submissive rushed forward, carried on by the sheer magnitude of his momentum even while he faltered in his flight, fluttered and frantically tried to keep his balance.

For a short, horrifying moment Blaise already saw himself plunge to the ground and he heard his lover scream his name in terror and the flash of a levitation charm darted past him without finding its goal. It was only by pure luck that Blaise managed to grasp one of Harry's ankles as his hand swept past the other's legs and instinctively grabbed a hold of him in the last moment and it felt as if his shoulder was being dislocated from the sudden jerk, but he held on tightly nonetheless, ripping at the other's leg and pulling him down with his weight. One of the light shoes fell from the foot he was holding unto, tumbling to the ground with a clearly audible thud like a cruel reminder of what would await the Italian, should he lose his grip.

If Blaise had taken a hold of both of Harry's ankles, he might not have succeeded in slowing the Gryffindor enough to prevent both of them from passing the wards in the last moment. But as it was, Harry couldn't assume the correct pose for flying once again: he couldn't straighten, didn't manage to get his legs in one line with his torso; even worse: the heavy weight of the Italian's body, hanging so suddenly from only one of his legs, threw him completely off course.  
Abruptly his leg was wrenched down, causing Blaise to be ripped forwards and to the left so that he acted as a weighted pendulum. Already having been brought into a heavy rightwards tilt by their collision, the Gryffindor was whipped around and Blaise's weight, driven by Harry's incredible forward momentum, propelled him into a tumbling, lurching pirouette that made the two Vykélari tense and feint with dizziness.  
"Let go!" The brunet screamed at him, panic creeping into his furious voice. But without the determination to carry an attempt at freeing himself to the extreme and hurting or injuring Blaise, it was no use.

Blaise half expected them to fall, it all happened so fast, but before he could really start to fear for their lives, or do anything at all, his fingers started to tingle, becoming warm and warmer as magic pulsed beneath them, no streams, no sparkles, just one powerful entity living within each cell of the body he was holding onto, existing in Harry's mind and spirit if not his very soul. It _was_ Harry, and Harry was magic.

It rushed into Blaise's body before he had the chance to close himself off, streaming into his hands, along the muscles of his arms and into his chest, flooding his lungs until he felt he couldn't breathe, piercing his heart until it ached, making his stomach lurch and his legs cramp and he was jerked off Harry's body as if he had been caught by a tornado that had carried him for a few twirls only to spit him out again, throwing him away.

It also caught him. In mid-air, facing Harry who had also come to a stop and by Merlin, he looked as if from another world: floating in the darkness with his wings poised behind him like a vengeful angel, he was gleaming softly as if filled with an inner light that burned along the edges of every feather, danced over every inch of skin but which was nowhere near as bright as in his eyes, the green having replaced the white almost completely, creating ominously gleaming gems of emerald. Surrounded by pale ultraviolet and dark swirls they held him captive, demanded his sole attention.

"Let me go, Blaise, and don't follow me!" He ordered, his voice reedy. Ordered!

By god, he was beautiful!

"Harry!" Blaise whispered, because he couldn't say 'never', like he wanted to.

Swiftly but thoroughly, he felt out the cloud of magic still suffusing him, the invader the submissive had left behind to save him from a fall and hold him up and keep him captive.

Harry still didn't understand, or at least hadn't acknowledged that while he was the one with more magical strength, the dominants were the ones with more control. And softly Blaise welcomed the not so foreign energy, gentling its aggressive, rough tendrils with affectionate, soothing touches, letting it fill him and melt with his own.  
What a heady feeling, all that magic vibrating within him, waiting to be used, clamouring for it!

It took only seconds for the whole process, Harry's magic already knowing and most likely trusting him, and for Blaise to spread his wings and let the stolen magic that was now indiscernible from his own dance over the surface of his feathers, drawing swirls and patterns more energetic than ever to confuse the submissive, to hold _his_ attention captive, while he soared closer.

"Let us help you, Harry. Let us protect you!" He called, infusing his words with that magic so that they vibrated magnetically.

Harry shook his head as if to clear it and of course he must know what was happening, but that shouldn't make it any easier for him to turn away from this unusually impressive display and really, he couldn't honestly want to face whoever was blackmailing him on his own.

But he wasn't as close as the last time he had done it, after Harry's first flight when he had cocooned the submissive in his wings and dazzled him out of instinct, and Harry was not merely insecure but angry and terribly afraid and so those green eyes jerked away from his with what had to be an act of true volition and Harry's whole posture straightened where he kept himself levitated in the air, his chin raised proudly with defiance even while he kept his eyes averted for fear of catching sight of Blaise and falling under his influence again.  
"You promised never to use this on me again!" He pressed out stubbornly, but there was also something colder there making his voice tremble and his shoulders hunch up and he lowered himself to the ground in one elegant, fluent movement. None of them truly wanted to fight each other.

Blaise followed suite, coming to stand some metres away from their Gryffindor and he could also see Draco landing so that Harry was between them.

Slowly, Blaise let his eyes drift to Harry's again and he shook his head once.  
"No, actually I only promised we'd work on it together." He clarified but went on swiftly, when Harry's expression twisted as if speared with fury.  
"But I _did_ swear not to let anyone force you to do anything you didn't want."

For a moment, Harry seemed to be on the verge of staggering backwards as if slapped with full force. Then he reigned himself in, his face hardening into a caricature of the Gryffindor Blaise knew, torn between pain and guilt, fear and anger, determination and insecurity… and Blaise hated. Hated. Whatever had done this to him.

"What if I just want to go?" Harry sneered, but it wasn't genuine, his face forced into an expression it wasn't made for. "Maybe I just can't bear to play these games anymore."  
With an indefinite hand wave he gestured between Draco behind him and Blaise.

"You're lying, Harry; Merlin, you are the worst liar ever!" Draco said softly, making Harry whirl around his own axis to face him.

"That's not true!" He shouted.

"I know that someone is forcing you to do this, but whoever this is and whatever they threatened to do, I don’t care, I won’t let you leave the Manor now!"

"That’s not your decision to make!" Harry yelled and Blaise could see him trembling. "You can’t tell me what to do!"

It was a precarious situation that needed swift, thoughtful actions… they might stun Harry now while he was so agitated, too agitated perhaps to protect himself, but they might also lose his trust and really, Blaise didn't want to incapacitate him while somewhere out there an enemy was just waiting to thrust his claws into the younger man.

They needed to make Harry stop to deny the blackmailing, needed him to confide in them.  
"Harry," He said gently and waited for the Gryffindor to throw him an intense look over his shoulder.   
"You are right, and we would never force you to stay here. You can go, if you really want to."

Harry's eyes narrowed, as if sensing a trap, unable to believe that it could be so easy. Of course he was right. It was time to find out, whether Blaise's suspicions were correct.

"But not like this. It is too dangerous. You can use the portkey I gave you to return to England and from there you can go anywhere you want. You know the keyword, Harry. Let us just wait until the morning and contact your friends via the two-way-mirror so that they can come and get you from the safe house."

He had been right, this was about Granger and Weasley: during his suggestion, all colour vanished from beneath the tan on Harry's face, leaving him deathly pale and for some reason he clutched at his left arm causing Blaise to wonder for a terrible second whether the Gryffindor had given his blackmailer a Tiwaz oath.

"No!" Harry all but yelled, desperation creeping into his voice like frost. "No, I want to leave now!"

At that moment, a House Elf appeared right next to Blaise, making him almost jump in surprise. It was Alfar, his chief House Elf, the large ears trembling with distress as he bowed so low his nose almost touched the ground. "Master Blaise, sir. The _guardia_ , master!"

Immediately, Blaise whipped around and true enough, there, just behind the wards before the start of the driveway leading up to the manor, stood a group of at least a dozen men, most of them in the elegant, green uniform of the Italian Aurors, looking grim and determined with their wands drawn.

And there in the back was the pale face of one of Blaise's uncles, a tiny, winsome smile playing at the edge of his lips, not quite there yet but almost and his chin raised proudly. With the poise of someone who was sure of his victory he encountered his nephew's betrayed gaze and Blaise didn't need Harry's gasped "They are here!" to know that he was facing one of the blackmailers.  



	24. Third Time's The Charm

It was odd, Draco thought, that his raging fear should quieten now with a dozen experienced fighters standing in front of the manor's wards, all of them looking determined to use the wands that were already drawn and pointed at him and Blaise, when only moments before his heart had given such a furious drum-solo at the very thought of Harry being lost to them.

But their Gryffindor was still here where they could protect him and their enemy had transformed from a bodiless phantom of smoke and shadows into something real, had solidified into a being of flesh and blood that could be fought and could be defeated. Even better: it turned out to be an enemy they knew so that they could follow him if he retreated and take him down, could deduce where to find Harry's friends and save them – there was no doubt in his mind that they were the bargaining tool used against the submissive in this vile attempt at blackmail, not after Harry's reaction to Blaise's so innocently voiced proposal – and decide on the best suited strategy for all of these options based on the knowledge they held over their enemy.

Of course it would be foolish to forget that Blaise's uncle, too, knew where best to strike at them; Draco wouldn't ever make the mistake of underestimating his fiancé's family that had left quite an impression on him when they had last visited Italy for any extended period of time – during the summer preceding their fourth year at Hogwarts, before the Dark Lord had returned and thrown their orderly world into chaos.  
But Blaise and Draco had matured during the four years that had passed since then, more than the Lanais might expect, had most likely changed more than their adversaries who hadn't had to deal with a civil war being decided on their doorstep. Therefore they might have an advantage at least for some time.

In any case, neither of the two Slytherins would allow these men to take Harry away without a fight.

With a few, resolute steps Draco was at Harry's side, his long fingers closing around the younger man's elbow securely to ensure that the Gryffindor wouldn't rush forward and deliver himself up to his blackmailers.

Harry flinched within his grasp, evidently not having heard him approach, and his skin was clammy as he looked up at Draco with a painfully frozen expression, a study of blank distress that reminded the pureblood somewhat of a work of that French artist, Delapensé – a photographer who mixed muggle and wizard techniques to create only partly moving pictures, often studies of feelings where everything aside from the very face of his current motif was in constant, fluid motion, brought to life by the gently blowing wind: leaves wafting across the picture, rustling branches, flying hair; everything was in stark contrast to those frozen, still faces as a homage to the expressiveness of the human face: love, hate, anger, surprise, joy… all depicted perfectly through a single moment in time.

It was the very reason why Draco had taken a liking to the eccentric artist in the first place, understanding that in their world of intrigues and façades one often wasn't given anything more substantial than this vital second to assess one's opponent and he had thought the photos to be perfect studies in what to look for. But his mother wouldn't accept anything in her home that was related to muggles in any way and his father disliked the obscene flaunting of emotions which he thought was something for the lower classes. Therefore Draco hadn't had the chance to see one of the rare pictures again after the one exhibition where he had first come upon them, hidden in a side room where they barely had the space and favourable light to unfurl their masterful effect.

Now though, seeing a study of desperation painted on Harry's face, set apart from the peaceful scenery around them – the perfect setting of a beautiful park bathed in starlight, the ocean breeze wafting around them and playing with Harry's raven strands and silky green feathers – he couldn't help but think it was tasteless and cruel.

At least the expression was just as fleeting as those captured by Delapensé and was gone quickly, gone with the moment, and Harry glared at him again, free wildness burning up in his eyes in that so familiar fashion that it raised something dark in him, memories and habits and desires that the gentle flow of the past few days had buried deep within him. Possessiveness and frustrated rage and above all: bitterness – why was Harry so stubbornly not allowing them to help him?

"Let go!" The brunet hissed, no hint of insecurity in his voice, no trace of turmoil that might lead Draco to doubt his sincerity. Harry had made a momentous decision and now his future, at least the immediate one, didn't include Blaise and him. Pushed aside for someone more important, discarded again and again and again by his former nemesis, his obsession – he _could_ be brave enough to call it by its true name, if only in the privacy of his mind – his lo…

Draco almost recoiled, shaking his head without really meaning to.

No. No, not that!

But the thought was already implanted into his mind firmly and strong enough to see over the bitter resentment, to see _Harry_ and Harry's seemingly insurmountable problems, his fears and try to understand them.

And in a way, he did: Harry might choose his friends over his Slytherin suitors now but that didn't necessarily mean that he cherished them more, only that their lives were at stake and not Draco's and Blaise's and Draco had to hold onto that belief.

Nonetheless it didn't change his decision. He wouldn't allow the Gryffindor to leave, wouldn't give him the choice even if Weasley and Granger should die in the wake of the events now unfurling before them, he didn't care for them above the hurt their death would inflict on Harry anyway. He'd readily sacrifice them if it meant _their_ Gryffindor's safety, even if Harry grew to hate him for it. Draco wouldn't force himself to endure the torture of standing back and watching Harry throw himself away, his life, his happiness; Harry couldn't expect him to.

He could protect the submissive and if the worst came to the worst, he could even give him someone to blame, so that Harry wouldn't have to blame himself.

Draco tightened his grasp on Harry's elbow, letting his magic seep into the unnaturally cold skin beneath his fingers to ease what discomfort he might be causing the submissive, and of course, hopefully also gentling the emotions wreaking havoc within.

"No, Harry, I won't. Now listen!" With a quick glance towards his fiancé he assured himself that Blaise would take care of their unbidden guests while he kept their Gryffindor safe, then he turned to Harry again, cupping one of those soft cheeks with his free hand, his resolve steeling when he felt the crusty residue of tears.

"3-0-5, Harry…" He softly whispered the keyword for the portkey Blaise had given him, letting his thumb stroke gently over the soft skin at the other's temple. "Say it and go! And I promise we will take care of everything else. They will think I forced a portkey upon you. It will be fine, now that we know who they are they won't dare to hurt your friends." And he infused him with more soothing magic, trying to boost his confidence in them.

Harry only shook his head in tiny, jerky movements though, eyes wide like a rabbit's, his lips moving exaggeratedly as if he wanted Draco to read from them what he wouldn't voice out loud. What the hell…?

But the only thing the blonde got clearly was 'no' and the only thing he realised a moment later with brutally shocking clarity, was that somehow the blackmailers must be listening in on them at this very moment, probably had the whole time they had been out here, following the escaping submissive.

And Harry had known about that, had tried to keep up the illusion of leaving out of his own volition for the benefit of an audience that they couldn't see… hence his fear of Draco and Blaise learning the truth about his friends, his fear of giving in and staying without being forced. It all made sense…

And Draco had given the secret of the portkey away…

Horrified he looked at the brunet as if seeing him for the first time. Oh, Merlin how brilliant, how evil, how cruel and simple and clever… that was it, wasn't it? They had told Harry to leave the Manor and not alert a soul or they would kill his friends and somehow they had found a way to monitor him to ensure that he would have to follow through with it, too. Draco could almost respect the sharp mind behind this plan in a certain, sick way: it was ingenious in its simplicity.

But Harry's lips moved again, and the words he wanted to say were perfectly understandable, both visible in the clear mussitation and the look in his eyes that encountered him with such a painful request for forgiveness.

'I'm sorry.'

An ominous sense of foreboding overcame him, drenching him like cold rain. Immediately Draco raised his magic around him in defence, raised his wand and spread his wings, fully intending to cocoon Harry in them and enforce his compliance. But Harry was quicker.

* * *

  
Nothing in Blaise's poise and sure, measured steps would have betrayed his wariness as he approached the wards and stepped past the row of House Elves that had faithfully refused the intruders entrance as per their master's orders. Not that the group of men seemed to really have tried: they were waiting to be acknowledged, perhaps – hopefully – because they were unwilling to risk a fight with so many House Elves.

Still, Blaise himself very well knew that the outcome of such a confrontation was more than just uncertain. He himself was no experienced fighter and Draco would probably be busy enough trying to keep Harry from handing himself over.  
Aside from that, they only had two emergency portkeys back to England right now and that meant that at least one of them couldn't flee. If he didn't want to find himself stranded in Italy as a fugitive, he would have to be careful not to clash with the law.

For whatever reason the guardia had found their way to his doorstep, he would have to try to placate them, even if that looked like a well-nigh impossible task, what with their grim expressions, the scornful tightening around their lips, the narrowed eyes and the drawn wands, their stances betraying their readiness to launch an attack at a moment's notice.

"Signori," Blaise nodded towards the armed guardia with a carefully measured, polite smile, once he came to stand before them.  
Then he turned to his uncle. "Zio Eleuterio."

"Blaise." The man greeted him, his voice ominously free of any trace of the cautious warmth that he had previously used in his conversations with his nephew. Of course that wasn't too surprising: Blaise had never been very close to the family of his father, mostly due to his mother and his mother's deeds. Being widowed once was sad; twice was a true tragedy. But to be widowed seven times was more than just circumstantial evidence for murder, even if there was no real proof for foul play that any court would accept.

So, his uncles, aunts and cousins had stayed in contact with him only because he was family, whatever crimes they believed his mother to be guilty of, and because they saw it as their duty to look after their family member's initiation into the Vykélari society as a young dominant.  
But Amalyne was still the mother that had raised him and had been a major influence throughout his youth and neither Blaise nor his father's relatives would ever forget that little fact.

"It is a bit late for a social visit." He remarked in Italian, refusing to overtly eye the wands pointed at him, even if he kept them in his line of vision. That pale face with the watery green-brown eyes remained his main focus as he tried to gauge the man's intentions, his strategy.

"If this is about a Vykélari related matter, then I must ask you gentlemen to leave," Blaise continued with a short glance at the men from the guardia, "as non-Vykélari are prohibited from interfering. If it is not, however, then I would ask you, uncle, to leave since this seems to be a matter of grave importance that is likely to occupy my time for a while."

Somehow, this seemed to be the wrong thing to say. His sharp ears easily caught the quiet, angry murmurs the Italian Aurors probably thought to be inaudible for him, curses and muttered insults, and with a spark of unease Blaise noticed that they were actually on the verge of attacking him. Honest contempt and revulsion pulsed towards him in waves and more than one of the men took an angry step forward, knuckles white around the sturdy woods in their hands.

"They are here, because the Vykélari council asked them to help in the enforcement of our laws and in this function they observe my command." His uncle declared coolly, pausing to give the words the proper effect.

Of course. The Vykélari council was, like the British Wizengamot, an organ of the legislature and while it could execute its laws by itself, it could also request the support of the guardia. Blaise knew that this was very similar to the system in their own country: if someone infringed on Vykélari laws, Lucius had the right to pronounce a sentence and demand that the Aurors arrest the perpetrator.

His relatives wanted to manoeuvre him and Draco out of the way without actually having to fight them. They were about to accuse them of some offence or another!

Before Blaise could decide on a suitable course of action, his uncle was already continuing with such genuine disappointment and aversion, that it nearly could have fooled even him. "How could you, Blaise?"

"I am not aware of any wrongdoing!" He answered, harshly lifting his chin, secure in the knowledge that they could not have any solid evidence for neither he nor Draco had actually broken any Vykélari laws as far as he knew. But right in front of him one of the guardia, a man of mid-thirty with dark eyes and thin brown hair, snarled at him. Actually snarled!

They really thought him guilty of whatever it was they were accusing him of.

The realisation was quite surprising. And disconcerting. Whatever lies his relatives had spread about him and Draco might have serious repercussions and spread like a disease from one wizard to another, from one _country_ to another; like an epidemic. The list of their allies was short enough as it was, they couldn't afford gaining more powerful enemies, especially not the local executive authority.

Blaise squared his shoulders, letting all the visible emotions drain from his expression, his voice and his posture, and willed himself to calm. Magic and intelligence – these were the powers he believed in; and without Harry willingly fighting on their side, he only had the latter to lean on.  
"And what is it you think I have done, if I may ask?"

Just then a dull thud had Blaise whip his head around before his uncle even had the chance to answer. His heart faltered at what he saw, making a distant part of his mind wonder how often Harry could do that to him before it would just give up beating altogether.

It took a moment for him to grasp and understand the image that presented itself to him, but when it did, it appalled and shocked him all the worse: Harry had attacked Draco! He had attacked him and his fiancé was bent forward, curling around some hidden pain, clutching at his stomach with his wings hunched up behind him and Blaise couldn't see his face, couldn't see how bad it was, how badly he might be hurt. His platinum blonde hair fell messily into his brow and eyes and Harry had taken him by the scruff of his neck. By Mordred, he must have kneed him!

Blaise reached for his own wand, not even sure whether he wanted to stun the Gryffindor or cast a Protego between the two fighters so they wouldn't hurt each other further; at the very same moment Harry was snatching that beautiful piece of hawthorn and unicorn hair that was Draco's weapon out of the blonde's loosened grip. Just as Blaise raised his hand, the guardia behind him reacted, thinking him about to attack the submissive.

Multiple bolts of pure magical energy hit his back, one shockwave after the other singeing his skin, and Blaise felt his wand fly out of his grip, felt his arms snap violently to his side and his legs push together in a full body-bind, felt himself fall, helplessly, to the ground.

He could only watch the rough gravel rush towards him, unable to even close his eyes and he expected his nose to crush on the stones painfully when he was magically flipped at the last moment and sank into the cottony softness of a cushioning charm.

Moments thereafter Blaise saw out of the corner of his immobilized eyes, how the heavily blurred silhouettes of his servants surrounded him protectively, could sense the soft vibrations of their own innate magic pulsing around him and yet he couldn't feel relieved, desperation swelling in his throat accompanied by the taste of bile, so thickly he could barely swallow past it. What was happening to Harry? To Draco?

"Leave master Blaise alone!" Alfar screeched from where he stood directly next to Blaise's head, who was left without any other option but to listen while the endless, starlit sky filled almost his entire field of vision. Fervently he tried to push against the hold of the body-bind, to sense out the magical strings that bound him and break them apart, but the worded curse was too focused in its aim, too stiff for him to counter; not like Harry's own comfortably familiar magic earlier that had been driven by a vague wish for his safety.

Damn it! He needed to see Draco, needed to know both him and Harry safe and well and…

And he needed to bring Harry back to reason before he was gone!

"Stand down, Elf!" Blaise heard his uncle order. "We are not here to arrest your master, though if you attack us, he will be charged for your offence."

Tense and agitated, Blaise strained his ears, trying to calm his too fast and too loud breathing, the desperate need to know what was happening sizzling in his veins.

But there was only silence, intermitted by heavy breathing fraught with tension, the barely perceptible rustling of the fabrics wrapped around the House Elves' bodies when they shifted around. Alfar must be obeying his uncle's order and in a way, Blaise was glad: he neither wanted to lose his trusted servant who couldn't be expected to measure up to so many wizards, nor did he want the added trouble of another formal accusation. But if Harry had taken Draco's wand and maybe checkmated him completely, then there was no one but the House Elves to interfere now.

"Mr Potter," His uncle called out, having switched to English. The clear voice echoed over Blaise's land, and he felt as if it was tainting it – every stone, every leave and flower – with the falseness of his concern.  
"You are Mr Potter, are you not?"

"I am." Harry answered resolutely and Blaise wanted to cry out in frustration when the Gryffindor's voice came from much too close but his enforced silence and stillness held.

"Don't be afraid. Your letter reached us and we are here to help you."  
Feint and sick, Blaise listened, a murderous ache blossoming behind his temples at that revelation.

Harry's letter. That stupid, damned spawn of thoughtlessness now being turned into a tool of spiteful destruction. Blaise's muscles cramped as he willed them to move, already tensed beyond what was wise and healthy due to the force of the hex lying upon him. That Harry's rashness should now be used against them!

Harry, who was now stepping past him, so close that Blaise saw his face, barely and much too blurred to make out any details, in the periphery of his field of vision, a pale oval in that see of darkness. There he paused, looking down at him but Blaise couldn't see his expression from this angle, unable to change his eyes' focus away from these damned stars consuming themselves in the endless distance.

'Look at me!' Blaise thought, tried to will it to happen like a wordlessly cast spell. He just needed to see Harry, if only he could speak with him, look him in his damned green, gorgeous eyes and convince him not to leave…  
Had either he or Draco ever just asked Harry to stay? Blaise was ready to _beg_ him.

"What will you do with them?" Harry asked with a curiously dead voice, bar of any intonation and he still hadn't moved any further as far as Blaise could tell. The immobilized Italian held his breath as he waited for an answer, sick with this situation and his helplessness and hoping against hope that he and Draco wouldn't be arrested before they could somehow find a way to safely get Harry back to Britain.

But oh, he'd kill them! If they hurt this idiot, _Blaise's_ idiot, or forced him to mate, he'd kill them all!

"Don't worry, you no longer have to fear them." Almost Blaise could have sneered spitefully at this ignorant statement. Never, not once in his life, had Harry James Potter been truly afraid of either him or Draco. He was brave, their Gryffindor, foolishly so sometimes, but he wouldn't have him any other way: proud, defiant and bowing to no one! No one. Least of all Blaise's own relatives.  
Maybe, they would find that out for themselves and if that happened, Blaise could almost pity them.

The oval of Harry's face narrowed like the waning moon as he faced away from Blaise, turning to his uncle for a few silent seconds, probably staring him down, that little jewel…

"It depends entirely on your testimony, Mr Potter," his uncle Eleuterio finally said with a feint hint of impatience, "which you could give tomorrow if you feel up to it after you have rested. Until then their wands will be confiscated and they will stay here under house arrest."

'Say no!' Blaise found himself silently begging. If Harry refused now – even though Blaise rationally knew that he never would – they could still get him to safety, could still work on proving his relatives' involvement in this obvious attempt at blackmail to the guardia.

But Harry only nodded in the periphery of his field of view and he walked away, the gravel crunching beneath his feet deafeningly in the silence of the night and every step felt like a kick to Blaise's guts.

The worst was, that in the end he couldn't even hear the exact moment their colibrí finally left, the quiet sounds that he made – someone used to walk and move as quietly as an owl on a hunt – were too low even for his ears to pick up, easily getting lost in the noise of the guardia as they fastened bracelets around his and Draco's wrists that would notify them the moment one of them set foot outside of the manor as well as enable them to locate the two of them wherever they went. He strained his ears, attempting to follow Harry for as long as he could but however much he tried, he couldn't identify the moment his uncle and Harry were finally gone.

* * *

  
Draco was shivering with rage when the Italian Aurors at last released him from the paralysis Harry had cursed him with. Not that anyone but him and maybe Blaise would have noticed the barely perceptible tremors in his shoulders and hands, but still; his fury was so intense that the disgust and revulsion on their captors' faces didn't even faze him in the slightest.

He stood quickly, one hand flying to his stomach as it reminded him with a painful pinch of Harry's abuse. And oh, how he would make the Gryffindor regret that one once he had him back! 'Or if' a part of him that he didn't care to listen to acknowledged the loathsome possibility of Harry never returning.

"You are making a mistake!" He growled lowly at the young, brunet man who had freed him and who was still regarding him as if he was dried flobberworm mucus dirtying his boots (which were undoubtedly of imitation dragon leather, anyway). How he wanted to smash the pretentious idiot's nose in!

The guard huffed condescendingly. "You can deny it all you want. We saw with our own eyes how you treated that poor boy."

Draco might have attacked the man, if not physically, then at least verbally, were it not for Blaise coming to stand next to him at that very moment and grasping his shoulder. Insistently his fiancé turned him towards him, demanding his attention.  
"Are you okay?" He asked in English and from the concern and tenseness in his deep timbre and his grip Draco knew that it was as much a caution as it was a query for his welfare. Without wands, without allies, they were reliant on the goodwill and believe of the guardia, whether Draco abhorred the very notion of depending on someone else, least of all Aurors, or not; it was a necessity.

After giving his dark lover a short nod of acquiescence to both, Draco turned to the other man once more.  
"Is that what we are accused of? Abuse?" He asked and if there was more outrage resonating in his words than he intended there to be, well, at least it was genuine.

"I'd say it was obvious, but if you need me to spell it out for you: yes, Eleuterio Lanai, as a representative of the Vykélari council, found you guilty of the abuse of a submissive."

"Of course he would!" Blaise sneered but the man went on undeterred.

"And considering the brutality we just witnessed, the state of evidence is more than clear! You are under house arrest until the submissive in question…"

"His name is Harry!"

"… had a chance to testify."

Draco snorted angrily. "And by then he will have been forced to mate with…"

"Don't you dare accusing the Lanai family now or I will personally lodge a libel action!" Another man ground out, irately throwing his long, dark hair back over his shoulders. From the silver ribbon tied round his left upper arm, Draco recognized the commanding guard, a tall, formidable wizard with broad shoulders and a face that looked as if roughly carved from oak wood.

Draco puckered up his lips, trying to reign back his anger. Maybe, if he could appeal to these men's sense of justice and conscience… "You'll see whether we lied or not when Harry is mated by tomorrow morning to someone he never met before! But by then it will be too late and it will be _your_ fault!"

"Eleuterio is a highly respectable man and furthermore a good friend of mine, so watch what you say, boy!" The man warned, thrusting his finger into Draco's shoulder so hard that he had to take a step back and Blaise snarled, his elongated fangs exposed threateningly, as he pushed himself partly in front of his lover.

"We only tried to keep him here because someone blackmailed him into leaving!" It was a desperate attempt, a useless attempt, and yet Draco still had to make it, to try one last time even though he knew that the guardia wouldn't listen, not when they had already revealed their partiality.

"And do you have any proof of that preposterous accusation?"

Draco was surprised that the Italian had even bothered to ask, having expected him to merely threaten them some more about the possible repercussions of calumny. But the end result was the same.  
No one had entered the wards, and if the two-way-mirror was destroyed, as Draco suspected (the blackmailers surely wouldn't forget such important and obvious a detail when they had thought of nearly everything else), then they couldn't even prove that someone had contacted Harry, let alone blackmailed him.

No one would believe them if they said that the submissive had enjoyed their date, had kissed them passionately and of his own free will only half an hour before undertaking a reckless attempt to flee; not when they were the accused. After all he had even shown himself willing to hurt Draco and Blaise.

And asking for veritaserum was a dangerous thing, since they had forced Harry to stay in the manor, had denied him a wand and made the House Elves into his prison guards. And while that was legal, according to Vykélari laws, they hadn't been really gentle about it either. The way they had tied Harry up after his first escape attempt could be perceived as abuse and that was punishable. It certainly wouldn't help their case that such things hadn't been unusual in the past and that it had practically never come to a lawsuit: dominants had always ensured that submissives wouldn't contact anyone before the actual mating and afterwards, well, who would ever accuse the man you, your life force and your magic were irreversibly bound to for the rest of your life? It would only make a bad situation worse.  
Besides, in the rare cases that a submissive, or a friend of the submissive, accused a dominant, the Vykélari council used to iron out the problem in one way or another before it reached the public. It wasn't exactly possible to complain that this council had now decided to really enforce the law just to give the submissive to someone else, especially since there was no way to really prove the last part of this claim.

"No, we don't." Blaise finally answered when Draco remained silent, glowering and fuming inside.

"Good." The man nodded, contented for now before he and his men made to leave.

Only one of the guardia hesitated for a few moments, his muddy brown eyes resting thoughtfully on the two Slytherins they left behind, without a wand and without the possibility to follow Mr Potter unnoticed. He was still young, of course, still less experienced than most of his unit and he knew he shouldn't let the untenable accusations of criminals get to him, but the little spark of insecurity that these two men had planted within him threatened to catch fire in a moment's notice.

What, if they were right?

But when the Comissario Mancini called his name once again, he followed, his dragon leather boots scrunching as he walked over the white gravel.  



	25. The Unforgiven (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, drkbella, GrimalkinInTheSewers and Faery66, for te nice comments and the support, it was greatly appreciated.

At last, all that Draco and Blaise were left with was the thick, nocturnal silence that bore down on the manor's grounds as if it wanted to choke everyone and everything within. None of them moved or made the littlest of sounds, not even the House Elves, as if compromising the acoustic vacuum in which they existed was a sacrilege of such incredible dimensions, that it might cause them to drop dead where they stood.

It wasn't shock, though, nor fright. No, it was simple shameful guilt in its purest form; because they had lost him, had allowed Harry to gull them and give himself over without so much as one measly spell to try and keep him safe as they had promised.

Moments stretched to unbearable eternity and neither Draco nor Blaise even dared to look at each other, knowing that the realisation of their own failure would be mirrored in the other's eyes, silent self-accusations that couldn't be assuaged, just like the rage that would undoubtedly be found there, rooted in their bitter helplessness that none of them could honestly deny.

But after not even a minute, the stubborn, prideful refusal to admit defeat broke through the surface like dandelion through asphalt. They might never have been exceptionally brave, or noble-minded or compassionate. Not magnanimous, generous, open-minded or prepared to make compromises or sacrifices. They might be selfish and on occasion maliciously gleeful, inconsiderate, ruthless narcissists who'd remorselessly find any loophole in any system and exploit it without another thought.

But. They were stubborn and they were smart, inventive and resourceful. Most important of all though: they were persistent. Forced into a corner, they never gave up even if the odds were against them. When given a task so difficult and dangerous that no one sane could expect him to survive it, had Draco not still found a way to succeed? Had he ever allowed his failures to discourage him in his attempts to trump his childhood enemies, especially Harry Potter?  
Were they not both survivors?

And yet Draco had to acknowledge, on some level at least, that the uncontrolled, barely visible tremors of his muscles resulted not from fierce anger alone.  
He remembered his grand-father telling him these stories of course: pale, myth-like tales of old times when there still had been submissives and the mysterious objects they had created (like the time-turners that had been irretrievably lost in the battle at the Department of Mysteries because they needed the power and strength and control of a mated Vykélari pair to function properly); tales of the legendary duels that had been fought over the right to mate, and though Abraxas Malfoy had always only told him of those ancestors that had won, Draco had read in their own family chronicle that there had been a selected few that had paid their ambition with their life.

Even after all he had been through, Draco was, with his 18 years, not ready to die; he was painfully aware of the fact, the knowledge that he had still so much to lose. All the little pleasures, his riches, his family, his life, Blaise.  
Harry.

Fight or flight? Draco usually knew the answer to that question without a doubt, his survival instincts were well developed and functioning perfectly. And he wasn't ashamed of his choices.  
Money, honour, pride, his reputation. Even his freedom. Those things, while immensely treasured, were not worth his life. He wasn't a Gryffindor, he didn't value honour more than life, not even more than winning. He would fight dirty to prevail but if victory was impossible he would run before he got truly hurt and if his escape routes were hopelessly blocked he'd beg for his life rather than lose it. If it pleased the masses to despise him or call him a coward for this particular set of priorities, then that was not his problem.

But he had not hesitated to fight for his own life, and for his parents'. He'd fight for Harry and Blaise at a moment's notice.

That didn't mean he wasn't afraid or didn't wish there was another, an easier way. But there wasn't and that knowledge burned in his throat and made his hands tremble and sweat.

All that pent up fury, frustration and fear, Draco released with a single, long breath. When whining didn't help, then it was time to act, time to focus.

"Your family is atrocious." He stated heatedly, because it had to be said.

"Hmm." Blaise hummed a vague affirmative, his jaw clenched almost too tightly to form words. "Not more than yours."

Draco pursed his lips. Well, that he couldn't really deny. Still it wasn't quite that simple.  
"Blaise." The blonde glanced at the darker Italian, his brow deeply furrowed. Family meant much to a pureblood, always would, the concept all too deeply ingrained in their upbringing, their society and traditions. Now they might be forced to directly go up against all that they had believed in and if their determination faltered for only a single, crucial moment, it might turn out to be better for Harry and for them to never have started.  
"If they refuse to let him go, if we have to fight them…"

"We will dispatch them."  
It was said in such a sober, unemotional manner that Draco felt himself relax, reassured that his fiancé wouldn't waver if a moment came where hesitation could cost them everything, heartened by Blaise's implicit trust that he wouldn't either. If Blaise trusted in him, Draco could trust in himself as well, even though he had no idea how they could ever succeed in overthrowing half a dozen wizards without any weapons at their disposal. It seemed almost foolishly naïve to believe in a successful outcome at this point. At least Harry Potter had always been blessed with an outrageous amount of luck and since they were on his side this time, Harry luck should be as well… their Harry. Their submissive.

"If Harry ends up mated though, before we get to him, don't kill his mate."

Inquisitively Blaise turned his dark gaze towards his lover, cocking his head at the splitter of ice he saw there, freezing those grey irises over.

"The stability of Harry's magic and life will depend on the continued existence of whoever it is." The blonde elaborated, once again looking to that very spot where the guardia and Blaise's uncle had emerged from the darkness, where they had waited to spring their trap.

When he continued, his voice was low, dropped by half an octave from pure hate. "But blind him, and castrate him and curse him with a loss of his tactile sense and taste so that he won't ever enjoy what he took by force."

Blaise nodded gravely. He couldn't really claim to be comfortable with the thought of _doing_ something like that, but he couldn't and wouldn't deny that the end results would please him greatly.  
"We will find them before something like that becomes necessary."

Then he turned, his eyes ominously flying from one House Elf to the other until he found the one little female he was searching. The poor thing cringed as she found herself the sole recipient of her master's dark stare, even if the fury within wasn't directed at her.  
"Giallina. You said that Harry was being forced to leave. What happened exactly?"

Had the situation been a different one, Blaise might have felt a twinge of pity at the way the little Elf gaped at him pleadingly, eyes shining bright with unshed tears, her fists buried in the folds of the old curtain wrapped around her diminutive form and her whole body shivering, trembling violently. Blaise understood that she was afraid to receive clothes this time after having been lucky to escape that fate when she had sent away Harry's letter to his friends. The very same letter that had now convinced the guardia that Blaise and Draco were abusive bastards…

His compassion, though, was limited. Frankly, he wasn't interested in the guilt question or in soothing his servants. Not now. Only the information about Harry that she might have was important.

"Giallina doesn't know!" The Elf whimpered, looking up at him from beneath long lashes, as if barely daring to face him.

"Why then did you say that he was being forced to leave? Answer, Elf!"

"Sirs Ives and Adler Malfoy told her to alert the master. Giallina swears!"

Next to him, Draco grasped his arm and Blaise faced away from the pitiful sight of his servant towards his fiancé. "Adler must have seen Harry leave through the magical windows in the room his portrait is in."

Blaise nodded curtly, displeased and even disappointed to some degree, having hoped for more detailed information. But if Giallina and the two portraits had merely watched Harry sneak out through the park in front of the manor and then drawn their conclusions from that highly suspicious behaviour, then they would have no further information about Harry's or Granger's and Weasley's whereabouts; or whether his relatives had kidnapped even more of Harry's friends.

And yet, something didn't quite fit: if Adler had seen the whole fiasco from the moment Harry had left the building, why not send the House Elf that Blaise had given him? Why send Giallina, his husband's Elf? And how could they have been certain that Harry was being blackmailed when they had no possibility to know what went on within the house or what had been spoken during and after the submissive's escape attempt? After all, Blaise and Draco could also have had a row with their guest, thus making Harry leave of his own volition.  
No. Ives and Adler had to know more.

Whether Draco shared his thoughts or read the scepticism from his expression, Blaise wasn't sure, but his fiancé looked at him intently, tight lines around his pursed lips, eyes steely and flashing with the brightness of a sharp mind that never stilled.  
"We need wands, Blaise. Call whomever you trust and use whatever you need. You know the contents of my vault. Use it all if necessary."

It should have come as a surprise, Blaise thought. They were starting to create themselves an army of enemies, even going so far as to revolt against their own parents, risking a disinheritance. Rationality should dictate them to cut their losses, and make sure they still had enough to support themselves, to make problems disappear with gifts and bribes to the right persons. But the only unexpected element caused by Draco's demand was the lack of any surprise. Maybe because between the two of them and Harry they had been tossed out of the realm of logic long ago, having violated the laws reigning there a thousand times too often.

"And you?"

Draco cocked his eyebrows, grinding his jaw in a way that Blaise knew he hated when it was someone else doing it instead. "I'll go and see what Adler knows. Maybe we can figure out where they took him."

* * *

  
Not even a minute later, Draco ripped the door to his ancestor's room open, striding in with sure steps.

The round chamber was flooded with warm, golden light, a stark contrast to the dark gardens that were visible through the wide magical windows covering the entire circle of walls, giving the fallacious illusion that the room was standing by itself between all the trees, hedges and flowers, the patios and serpentine paths, even though it was right in the centre of the manor.

Draco couldn't help but scowl at the driveway leading away from the main house, where only minutes before, the guardia had trampled over Blaise's property, self-righteous and haughty as they took away their wands and placed them under house arrest, as they allowed or rather condemned their Gryffindor – stupid, sweet, _moronic_ Harry – to enter an unknown arena unarmed and unprepared, facing off against an enemy that outnumbered him by far, that could never be underestimated: Blaise's relatives wouldn't have shown themselves if they were not utterly, positively convinced that they had correctly anticipated and were able to thwart each and every possible move either the submissive or the two dominants that had sheltered him could come up with.

How he wanted to let their eye balls dry up and wither away like snails on hot stones in the summer sun… but revenge would come later, once Harry was safe.

Breathing in deeply, Draco strode towards the tree-like pillar in the middle of the room where four paintings provided the portrait of his ancestor with room to manoeuvre around and the possibility to keep the entirety of the window front in sight.  
"Adler!" He called out, his voice commanding and harsher than he had expected.

He hadn't even reached the stylized tree and the artful painting of the sun-lit, two-storey library which hung at eye level at the only cubic part of the pillar that was carved right into its middle, when the black clad form of his ancestor stepped onto one of the balconies overlooking the reading room beneath.

"Draco!" The portrait grasped the railing with both hands, leaning over it towards the Malfoy heir and before Draco even had the chance to demand the information he so desperately needed, Adler was already talking in urgent tones, yet still mostly collected. "You have to call that thrice damned House Elf back!"

Pressing his tongue against the smooth row of his teeth, Draco tried to rein in his irritation. "I don't have time for your peculiarities, Adler!" He snapped. "You know what just happened outside. I need you to tell me everything that might even remotely pertain to Harry's current whereabouts."

Adler pushed himself away from the railing, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared at his descendant coldly, and, Draco thought, even a bit defensively and it was the latter observation that had Draco stay quiet, listening expectantly.  
"I might even be able to tell you _exactly_ where he is –" the portrait drawled, "if you get that House Elf."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Draco asked with an exasperated sigh. "And no games, Adler! I really don't have any time for this. Harry doesn't."

The tiny jerk of Adler's head didn't escape Draco's notice and he knew, knew that whatever the portrait had to tell him would be highly unwelcome news and more than likely Adler's fault. His stomach clenched in sudden discomfort. Merlin, he didn't need even more bad news.

Adler didn't hesitate for one moment. But he tilted his head and watched him curiously as if all this was a test for Draco, as if he was cataloguing his every reaction to judge him later – for what, Draco didn't know.

"Severus Snape's spying potion." The portrait said with an air of nonchalance and a fairly intricate hand wave, never leaving him out of his sight.

"Adler!" Draco hissed impatiently, angry that the portrait was wasting precious time while there was someone out there waiting for Harry to be brought to him, waiting to take possession of the submissive and his magic in the most permanent way possible: by mating him forcefully. And what the hell had that potion to do with any…

The realisation hit him with the force and suddenness of a bludger.  
By Morgaine's perfidy! For a moment, Draco found himself speechless, something that he could honestly claim didn't happen very often. But he couldn't even decide whether his thoughts raced or were pushed into momentary rigidity; too busy trying to find his way through the too many too conflicting notions and thoughts fighting for dominance within the too cramped confines of his head: outrage, mortification, _hope_ …

Draco well recalled the potion that his godfather had invented to help the Malfoys avoid the worst of the punishments dealt out in the post war trials, the dark silver liquid that was like moonlight and shadows, duskier and a bit more viscous than the one used for regular Pensieves. It had been only meant for the Aurors investigating the Malfoy cases, though, to know which witnesses had to be bribed, which evidence needed to get lost, the exact dates and times the Aurors would search their homes… it should never have been used on one so dear and close to them and when Severus had suggested they use it on Harry, told them that he'd send a vial along with Ives's and Adler's portraits, neither Blaise nor Draco had ever intended to deign it with another thought or look, much less apply it to Harry's stunningly green eyes. Not when he might one day become a lover or a husband even.

It was sickening and mortifying: the reeling, horrifying knowledge that they had been spied upon, not only Harry, but all three of them, as they played pugna aerea with the Battellis or when they had talked about their past, their future, their secrets in that magical preserve. When they had danced together at the palazzo di vetro.

When they had kissed.

The rage over that burned white and hot within Draco. Those precious moments had been private! This had been their day: Harry's, Blaise's and his. Their first date, and maybe if fate continued to be cruel to them it would even be their last… no one had the right to sully the memory of this very day!

And yet, the Pensieve that now held Harry's memories from the last hours or even days – how long had Adler had the House Elf spy on them? – it might tell them where to search for their missing… whatever it was that Harry was.  
The very idea of not taking advantage of that fortunate happenstance was inconceivable. Of course it was wrong that the Gryffindor had ever been subjected to the spying potion, but Draco would use it to his advantage nonetheless. Besides, he rather thought Harry might forgive him if it helped safe his friends and keep him from having to mate with his blackmailer.

If Weasley and Granger died, though, he'd be lucky if the sometimes hot blooded teenager would not enact some form of revenge …

Forcefully, Draco wrestled that counterproductive thought down. Harry and his friends had survived one of the most dangerous wizards of their time hunting them, along with a horde of followers, some of which ranked among the most sadistic and insane personas that Draco had ever had the misfortune of meeting (Fenrir Greyback still gave him the creeps and the only redeeming quality that the werewolf had recently acquired, was being dead). The two Gryffindors would survive, they might even find a way to escape on their own: as much as the thought displeased him – or not, given the current circumstances – Weasley and Granger were anything if not resourceful.

"I had the House Elf keep an eye on Mr Potter." Adler interrupted his thoughts, his voice tight. "When he rushed in here and told me that our guest was being blackmailed I sent Ives' Elf to alert you immediately, without waiting for it to give me any background information – at that moment your hummingbird had already left the manor. I wanted to send my Elf to get the Pensieve, but he didn't await any order beyond the initial 'go'… I might have been a bit harsh when giving the command."

Draco clicked with his tongue, eyes narrow as they fixed the small, dark figure in the painting with a burning glare. Yes, that he could very well imagine: Adler shouting at the Elf to go and the little servant leaving immediately without waiting for further instructions. Being already displeased and nervous at having to spy on his master, but unable to disobey all the same because Blaise had made him vow his unquestioning obedience to the portrait, the Elf probably took the chance to avoid any further orders that he might have perceived as a betrayal to his master.  
And really, the portrait had phenomenally exceeded his powers this time. Undoubtedly Draco would have to speak with Adler about his unwelcome penchant for taking liberties, and how to rid him of that habit. But not now.

He took a step forward, fingers flexing at his side with the desire to act. "Where is the Elf?"

Adler gave him a long, assessing look, probably knowing all too well that while Draco might refuse to address Adler's brazen behaviour now, the matter with the spying potion was far from being over and that he'd have to justify his actions in a very near future or possibly find himself in some secluded room in an uninhibited house with each and every version of his own painting as the only company; complete isolation just as Draco had threatened. Maybe that was why the portrait offered straightforward information for once.  
"Where your fiancé is storing the unused furniture. Apparently."

Before Adler had even the chance to finish, Draco had already turned on his heels, striding towards the narrow door that stood out starkly from the circle of magical windows covering the room's walls.

"This is not over, Adler!" The Malfoy heir called out without even turning to face the portrait of his long deceased ancestor, just before the heavy door fell close behind him.

* * *

  
Blaise felt ready to scream, his heart beating so fast that it bordered on painful, his eyes stinging with frustration.

Of course he had known that they didn't have many allies, that it would be difficult to find someone willing and able to help them, but he hadn't quite expected this amount of opposition…  
Blaise sighed deeply, rubbing with his fingertips over his brow. They never should have left Britain, their homeland, where they had friends and allies to stand beside them, where Harry had people willing to face hordes of grims and nundus and dragons for him at a moment's notice.

Neither Blaise nor Draco had ever spent enough time in Italy to form strong alliances of their own, most of Blaise's contacts were loyal to the Lanai family and to him, the somewhat estranged nephew and cousin and grandson, only by extension.

First he had tried contacting the three families that were currently engaged in the business of wand making in Italy – via the floo, since he had no mirror connections established with them – fairly confident that his and Draco's joined fortunes would open them the doors they needed to be unlocked. But all it had brought him were hurting knees and grey and white ash stains on his hastily donned, dark dress robes.

His first two choices hadn't even had their floo connections open which should not have come as a surprise, since it was a pretty common practice both in Italy and in Britain; after all, who wanted his home open to unwelcome and possibly dangerous visitors in the dead of the night? But he couldn't contact them any other way, unable to leave the manor's grounds without alerting the guardia and using an owl would take too long.  
And the third wand maker, Oria Ragno, a wispy, elderly woman with grim lines around her narrow lips and even narrower eyes, refused to sell him even a practice wand, knowing that it would be illegal. It had been a heavy setback in Blaise's plans that the guardia had already alerted the wand-makers of his and Draco's ban of carrying any form of magical weapon.

From then on he had been met with one refusal, one failure after another. Acquaintances and friendships that he had made during his last visits before the war in Britain turned him away or didn't even answer, unwilling to openly show their colours in the rare cases they sympathised with him, but mostly outright refusing to even speak out against the Lanais, especially since helping Blaise and Draco would mean going against Vykélari law which would deliver them up to the mercy of the Lanais as the major source for representatives of the Vykélari Council, the very family they would agitate against.

The Ermacoras, the Caitos, the Sciarras, the Nieris… months of time spent together, years of correspondence – all for naught in the one situation where it would have counted.

Blaise couldn't even blame them, they had so much to lose as the Battellis summarized it so aptly:  
"What do you want me to do, Blaise?" Tore had asked, his rough face tense with the gravity of the situation, fingers drumming on a side table sitting next to his arm chair. There had been deep, dark rings circling his keen eyes but that hadn't lessened the force behind his words.

"Even if you were to win – _if_ , I say, because it is still very unlikely that you will find Mr Potter's whereabouts, much less win him back – even if you mated with him, I would still have gone against Vykélari laws and while you went back to England, I would have to stay here and if I was not thrown into prison by your uncle, then I would still have to content with a feud with the Lanais, a family too powerful for me or my significant others to take on. The Zabinis and Malfoys won't be here to protect us, and all of your considerable fortune won't be able to. I have a wife, Blaise! I have children! I won't endanger them, not for all the money in the world!"  
He had paused then, sunken down in his arm chair, and he had looked decades older than Blaise knew him to be, the lines in his face more pronounced than was normal for a healthy man in his mid-fifties as he regarded him with pity.

"I am very sorry – for Mr Potter and for you – and I hope this will not poison our relationship, but I cannot help you."

Tore had closed the mirror connection then, leaving Blaise behind in the oppressive silence of the conference room with the certain knowledge slowly seeping into his consciousness that they were harrowingly alone.

Forsaken.

But there was no way Blaise would let Harry pay the price for their failure to assess their situation correctly, to keep him safe and protected.

* * *

  
Draco disliked store rooms, the inevitable disarray and the mouldy smell of dust; large rooms cluttered with useless clobber that was either too precious to be thrown away but had been replaced by something worthier of the space in one of the actually inhabited rooms of the manor; or they were tokens kept in one's possession out of some sense of indebtedness because they had been tasteless gifts from friends and family. Either way Draco felt that one would be best advised to just sell the stuff and make it to money before it lost all its value.

In this case, the long hall harboured the remnants of the furnishings that Blaise's father had bequeathed his only son with along with Lanai manor, reminders of a man that Blaise had never known, a man that had given him life and had been killed by his own mother, something that Draco's fiancé fervently didn't want to be reminded of. And so he had locked away all those chairs and tables, cabinets and showcases, the décor and carpets and everything else, had it brought to this store room and hidden away beneath white linen sheets never to be touched by daylight again, creating a hall of ghosts. Haunting ghosts of a man that Blaise secretly wished to have known, guiltily so, because the desire was a direct accusation of the only family that was close to him: his mother, the black widow.

Unsurprisingly, Draco was glad that his dark Italian lover was two stories above him, trying to secure them some assistance or weapons at least, while he stood in front of seemingly endless corridors formed in between clusters of linen covered furniture, watching and waiting tensely and anxiously as Blaise's servants searched for the soft glow of a Pensieve or the pale skin of a House Elf hiding somewhere.

He had tried calling for Adler's little servant first, but without success, which lead him to the obvious conclusion that the Elf either was immersed in the Pensieve and thus unable to hear him or he wasn't in the room at all. Draco just hoped he hadn't taken the precious bowl with him that continuously filled itself with whatever Harry saw and heard. He had no time to search everywhere for Adler's foolish Elf, and he needed to see those memories urgently, even if the thought filled him with cold dread. Harry had been so full of fear, so desperate and he couldn't imagine what might have pushed him into such a state when he had been so composed and brave while flying through fiendfyre, while duelling with the Dark Lord in person, taunting him on the same battlefield that had demanded so many lives, so many fellow students…

Draco shook himself, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. Damn it, why couldn't the Elf have come to him, why couldn't he have thought for himself and been helpful for once?

His lips curled back in a silent snarl as his anger rose again, more powerful with each passing second. Perhaps it was unjust, but he didn't quite care about fairness right now, it was better than feeling helpless and out of his depth. And if he got Harry back, Draco swore he would employ human servants for anything but the simple cleaning tasks, servants that could actually anticipate their master's needs with logic and a brain that weighted more than one and a half pounds! Granger would like that as well, if he had understood their sweet hummingbird correctly…

"Master Draco, sir!" A shrill cry caught his attention, letting his head snap to the right from where he had heard it. Immediately guilt threatened to trip him up for having thought his fiancé's servants quite so useless and he released a heavy breath he wasn't aware of holding as he saw that intricately decorated stone bowl being levitated towards him, shimmering like a beacon of silver light. By Merlin, he had never seen anything so beautiful…

"Set it down!" He ordered, striding towards both Elf and Pensieve, finally feeling as if he could breathe freely again.

With almost no sound at all the bowl settled on the stone floor, handled with so much care by the Elf that levitated it – Alfar, Draco ascertained as he looked up briefly, already having sunken to his knees in front of the shadowy, silvery swirling liquid.

"Well done, Alfar." He praised quietly. "Now leave me alone but remain close by in case I need you."

Large eyes flashed with pleasure as the relatively tall Elf bowed to him so deeply his trembling ears swept over the somewhat dusty tiles. Silently Alfar raised himself to his full height again before gathering his fellow servants with his usual efficiency and within moments, Draco was left alone in the store hall, the silence enveloping him like a cocoon in which his own breathing and the rustling of his clothes with each movement echoed ominously.

He knew what he should do, knew there was no time to lose, but the very thought was harrowing in more than one way; and the silence filled his lungs, making him feel completely isolated, alone with a distasteful task, a necessary evil.

The thing was, Draco couldn't use the Pensieve in the usual fashion by leaning over it and falling into its silvery depths, for it would undoubtedly take him too long to watch all the memories inside and evaluate them and all the while it would fill up with even more visions as the spell kept pulling images and sensations from Harry, making his task a never ending one.

No, there was really only one choice, one possibility to examine the various contents in a short amount of time and catching up to those that were happening _right now_ : by absorbing them, sucking them up into his own mind as if they were his very own, as if he had been the one to live through them. But while that might not have been dangerous per se (it wasn't as if one might lose one's mind or suffer repercussions of a similar graveness) it could be a rather unsettling experience, depending on the memories. And on whether one had own recollections of the happenings.  
Normally the mind just accepted a single thought, as long as it wasn't too traumatic, as a distant memory that one couldn't clearly integrate into a contentual and temporal context. But if it overlaid with an existing one, then the multiple perspectives were difficult to deal with and absorbing another person's remembrances could lead to nausea and even mild shocks, the mind fighting the obvious intruder like a body would a foreign object. The experience might be pushed to overwhelming proportions because one did not only incorporate the visual and acoustic aspects of a past happening, but also emotions and sensations.  
The Pensieve was only a method to visualise a thought, but it contained real, complete memories with everything a wizard had experienced.

What Harry had experienced. At least since the last morning when Draco and Blaise had left him alone with Ives and Adler to prepare their date, which was the last possibility Adler had had to have the House Elf apply the potion to the Gryffindor's eyes. Draco would have to violate his trust utterly, by disrespecting every ounce of privacy he had possessed during these last eighteen hours.

It was not something he'd particularly enjoy doing – or, to be honest, it was rather the thought of confessing to Harry later, that disagreed with him. But he would nonetheless see it through and brave the consequences once they arose. If he could concentrate enough to manipulate the Pensieve without a wand, that is…

Well, he wouldn't know if he didn't try.

Huffing out a sigh, Draco leaned closer to the surface of the swirling liquid, careful to stay far enough away to not be sucked right into the memories. It was so much darker than a regular Pensieve, Draco thought, frowning in deep concentration as he brought his fingertips to meet the silver: his thumb for will and logic, his index finger for ambition and his ring finger for his subconscious that might guide his magic if only he let it.

The liquid was cool upon his skin but oddly dry and insubstantial, more like cold, thick air than any substance he knew, but at the same time it enfolded his fingers tightly like water and when he carefully sent his magic forth, feeling out the patterns and streams within, the silver thoughts swirled and danced merrily – danced for him. They felt oddly familiar, like a magical signature that he knew by heart and suddenly he realised with a shocking clarity, his pulse fluttering like a dying bird and his throat closing up, that this mass of liquid silver was the only token left from their time together; if they failed, he might never again have more of Harry than these memories, these fragile, fleeting, wispy ghosts, pathetic images of lost dreams that would never have a chance of being repeated, that would fade over the years to come until Draco would never be sure any more what had really happened and what his mind had orchestrated to comfort and entertain him. These were more precious than his own memories, though, because they were filled with Harry's lively spirit, his bright emotions, his own sensations – and he was nearly overcome with the greed to have them, especially if he should never have anything more.  
And undeniably that fear was there, hanging over his head ominously like the Sword of Damocles. However confident he felt, however much he trusted in his and Blaise's abilities and refused to acknowledge the possibility of another failure, a tiny part of him could not ignore the fact that Harry might now never become theirs.

If it should come to that, he at least wanted to have this meagre portion of Harry's life, this one day of seven years of knowing each other where the three of them had truly been happy together. Close.

Determined, Draco closed his eyes and brought his fingers up, pulling with him a wisp of dark, shadowed silver and pressing it against his forehead, to absorb the essence of a thought, of a memory not his own.

And the world shifted, unsteady and volatile as his mind sought for a way to align it with his own recollection of the past day. Suddenly there were memories warring against one another in a violent battle, happenings that had taken place simultaneously but that his mind couldn't quite reduce to a common denominator. Before his inner eye fleeting sensations of a few hours ago uncoiled like fragile blossoms opening themselves to the feeble morning sun, hints of voices and sounds and smells and images:  
 _The softness of a blanket beneath his legs, the warm sun light on his skin and the smell of grass and flowers and magic. And Harry sitting in front of him, gesticulating animatedly as their hummingbird told him and Blaise of his adventures; Draco had been so surprised at this new perspective of the happenings at Hogwarts, and a bit irked that Harry had freed the hippogriff that had attacked and hurt him, but content all the same that Harry was sharing this with Blaise and him. But he also remembered watching a dumbfounded mirror image of himself gape at him with blatant disbelief while he told him tales of fantastic time turners, dark dementors and stubborn hippogriffs, about animagi and werewolves hunting students – tales that he had really lived through, had experienced himself. Or not? Logically he knew he couldn't have, because at that time he hadn't even been outside of the castle, but that didn't make it less real…_

Draco shook his head jerkily to ban the sudden light-headedness threatening to make him feel faint and slightly sick, trying to ignore that inner conflict, this paradox. It was unimportant, insignificant, unrelated to the happenings of the past day!  
… Only one treasure he held onto and pulled closer to himself: the vague, somewhat guilty mirth that had unravelled in his chest during the story telling, the little sparkle that had lit his insides at the realisation that they could overcome their past together. Especially since this relief hadn't been in his chest, but Harry's. And Harry's joy that he now remembered.

A poisonous, self-flagellating memory for sure, because it made his fury rise again and mingle with painful regret and loss: their Gryffindor had been more than just comfortable in their presence, he had been happy. Somehow after years of obsessive enmity and vicious fighting they had managed to build some form of deep comfort and familiarity together, a sense of trust that whispered of … _something_ , something that could have had the potential to grow into something great and beautiful. The proof was in his very mind! Tangible and real. Nobody could, would be allowed to take that away!

Again his fingers dipped into the bowl, more quickly, more determined, more frantic. Again they let yet another thought vanish into the furrowed skin of his brow.

And sweet Merlin!

_The smell of flowers and candles had gently wafted through the air, it had been so beautiful a night with the soft music weaving a perfect background to their dancing as he was held between two chests, two pairs of arms beneath his legs and back. A bark of laughter, embarrassed and mirthful and so very genuine as it rang through the darkness; it had exploded from his own belly and at the same time speared his chest, because the boy he held so close was vibrating with it. There had been the reassuring pressure of arms around him holding him intimately close and at the same time not… he had been so very happy, so surprisingly comfortable in the arms of Blaise and Draco – or smug, really, holding Harry – so light, as if nothing was real aside from this very moment…_

"Harry…" Draco pressed his burning eyes shut at hearing his croaking voice. He was trembling, trying to hold onto Harry's affection, so warm and giddy in his chest. Shit! Damn it…

The memory was so precious – so useless!

Again!

With shaking fingers, Draco caught the next silver lining, the next gleaming memory. And then another when it didn't show him what he needed, and another. Reliving their whole date bit by bit, scene by scene in a seemingly random order, while the images and the emotions wreaked havoc in his mind, unsettling him more than he had thought possible. But he didn't allow himself more time to accept the overwhelming visions, to linger on them, rushing through them instead as if he were running over a path of glowing ambers.

_Underneath him the breath-taking landscape of Italy rushed past as he was racing over it in the chariots pulled by the Pihassan, feeling the wind in his face and playing with his hair and the exhilaration of this contest filled his chest, the pleasure of being the centre of Blaise's prideful boasting – "That's my colibrí!" – because Harry had launched a successful sneak attack at their opponents._

_Adler smirked at him and he – Harry – felt wary and confused because Ives had been so very angry at his husband who watched him like a mouse caught in a trap, the blue eyes unsettling and cold and smug, and he looked so wrong in that painted rose garden in his black, sombre attire. A hooded crow between colourful flowers of nostalgic beauty._

_Harry's fond exasperation as he listened to Draco and Blaise making up excuses for losing the game of aerial combat to the younger Battellis; it mingled so well with Draco's own pleasure as he made the submissive smile, made the Battelli children crow at them. Blaise had loved it as well, his dark eyes shining brightly and the gentle spark of desire for the dark Italian speared two chests at once._

_How Harry had distrusted the Battellis at first, how he had assessed them like possible enemies before dismissing them as most likely harmless. And Draco had stood at his side, nervously awaiting Harry's judgement of the Pihassan, of the Battelli's, of his and Blaise's plans for the day… and he wanted, Draco wanted his trust, wanted to take on the responsibility of keeping all of them safe and Harry could give him that, it wouldn't undermine his independence – "Okay." – the joy was visible in his expression and Harry smiled at him softly._

_Covering Draco's soft lips and being kissed by Harry, flooding this gorgeous body with waves of power he received and by Merlin, he looked so breath-taking like this, dazed and drunken on magic, his magic! But he hadn't really been looking, had he? He had been staring at the submissive that had done this to him like a besotted fool…_

More and more reminders tore through his brain and Draco's skin felt too tight to breathe in, like leather drying too quickly and hardening in the too warm air. It was too much, all these too deep emotions that were curiously close to what he felt for Blaise… a little less ripened perhaps, not as defined, but still there with a similar flavour, and so obviously on their way to becoming just as strong.  
Harry's emotions echoed this truth, Draco's own did and Blaise's most likely as well. It was cruel that he should only recognize it only now, and it tautened his whole being until he felt as if he was close to snapping.

And still he went on until – finally – he remembered what he had dreaded and searched for, as another sliver of silver entered his brow.

There could be no doubt now, Hermione and Ron were used against Harry and by Merlin, it made Draco's flesh crawl to remember the deep affection he (no, Harry) held for them. Not because he was repulsed, but because that man played with those emotions like a puppeteer with the strings connected to his toys' limbs.

_And god, they looked so broken, so uncharacteristically fearful! The determination to get them out of this nightmare he, Draco and Blaise had pulled them into had made his emotions freeze temporarily. But he couldn't bargain with the devil… and Ron was tortured for his defiance and he couldn't do anything, anything at all to save them! The screams! The screams tore through the air, so loud and shrill, ripped through every fibre of his being and he just wanted it to stop. He begged and pleaded but the cruel bastard was only challenging him more with every gaze and he knew he wouldn't release his friends before he had Harry's complete submission._  
 _So he gave it..._

The pure flood of emotions was overwhelming, it clouded his mind and left Draco gasping for air, his knees hurting from the cold, hard stone tiles, and the sour, bitter taste of bile in his mouth. He couldn't… couldn't think past the memories, they were smothering him… he needed them out!

Trembling fingers pressed against his forehead and he willed the hurtful thought to stick to them, so that he could pull and tear it out of his head. It was much more difficult than scooping it up from the Pensieve had been, but he managed it, pushed past the sluggish resistance and with another shiver it was gone, leaving only the vague feeling that there had been something to remember… it was such a relief to be free of it, such a horrible knowledge that this was what Harry had felt like, must be feeling like right now.

Panting, Draco lowered the memory into the bowl to the few other, swirling thoughts. The surface rippled like water, whirled like mist.

With his forefinger he prodded the liquid with intent and the Pensieve was activated: the silvery mass started to swirl quickly for a few moments until it started to become transparent and still, a looking glass showing Harry's rooms from above like a window in the ceiling.

Draco bent lower over the shallow bowl until his nose touched the cold, not quite solid substance and with an almighty lurch he was thrown forward, falling into the familiar icy-cold and black whirl pool that sucked the mind into the very heart of a memory.

A memory of chaos that welcomed him with a cacophony of screams and howling wind and Harry's shouting as he landed on the floor of Harry's rooms, the Gryffindor himself kneeling next to him, his magic racing around him like a tornado, completely out of control and the threads of the curtains that once had been draped over the two-way mirror flew around him in a whirlwind, partly obscuring his cowering form. His face was a grotesque grimace of desperation and horror as he tried to get that madman to stop torturing Weasley.

"I'll do it! Please stop, I'll do it – I'll do it!" Harry cried out, beseeched the kidnapper of his friends through the storm of his magic, hot tears flowing down his face and Draco wanted nothing more than to take him into his arms and apparate him out of this nightmare. But it was too late. This was the Harry of the past and he had already had to live through this hell. In Blaise's own home – practically under their very noses.

That didn't stop him from reaching out, though, his pale fingers hovering over the golden skin of Harry's cheek that he couldn't touch, reddened now from his shouting, from the strain and agitation. And, even as silence once more settled around him after the cruciatus curse was broken and Granger's and Weasley's terrified whimpers were once more hidden behind a privacy spell, he knew that Harry was thinking about killing this man, not with the delusive righteousness of an executioner, but with the despairing hopelessness of someone who didn't have a real choice. Someone forced to commit an unspeakable atrocity for the greater good.

"What have they done to you, Harry?" He whispered, thinking of Dumbledore, Voldemort, all the choices Harry had been forced to make and had been so unprepared for. Of this kidnapper who was now pushing the Gryffindor in a corner once again.

Behind him, the man spoke up and Draco reluctantly turned away from Harry's quickly donned, horrible expression of composedness, facing that devil with a whole new level of hate swamping him.  
"Are you ready to come to us now Mr Potter? Out of your own free will?"

"Laughable." Draco spat contemptibly. Harry's compliance in this would never be out of his own free will, whatever pretence that man wanted to uphold.

But he forced himself not to listen to the deadness in his nightingale's voice as he breathed a short "I will" in answer, focusing instead on the kidnapper himself, trying to find out where the man was, where Harry would be brought to.

As loath as he was at having to admit it, Draco didn't know him. Most of Blaise's relatives wore their hair long just as the purebloods had done for centuries once they left school and started to build their own lives and his face was plain and nondescript, a face like one might find thousands in Italy.

Polyjuiced then, most likely using the hair of a muggle, or possibly some transfiguration spell. And since the room he was in was unfamiliar to Draco as well, Harry's Pensieve memories were not applicable proofs for the guardia to convict Blaise's uncle, whose presence at the manor could be explained with Harry's letter because as a representative of the Vykélari council he had the duty to pursue any hint to the infraction of Vykélari law. For all they knew, it could be a complete coincidence that Harry was blackmailed the same evening that the council was notified of the letter.  
Reluctantly Draco had to admit that it was ingenious; a clever fallback option in case the actual plan had failed and Harry either had went to Draco and Blaise for help or had been hindered in his escape from the manor. Harry wouldn't be able to identify his kidnappers until after he had left the protection of Blaise and Draco and met his future mate.

And then, after Harry would be mated, there would only be three witnesses who could truly give evidence to the identity of the kidnappers: Harry, who would not be able to go against the family of his mate-to-be, and Weasley and Granger.

They were the only weaknesses in this plan, and perhaps the ones that held the answer Draco so desperately needed.

For the first time since this all began, Draco focused all of his attention on the two forms cowering almost pathetically there on the floor of this weird, flying muggle vehicle. It probably shouldn't be, but the sight was like barbed wire entangling itself into the coils of his guts. Of course witnessing torture always made him sick to the stomach, ever since he had experienced for himself that it rarely ended in something other than death and these were Harry's friends; for his sake at least he didn't want them hurt or dead.

Weasley lay trembling on the ground, having curled into a foetal position as if that could save him from yet another curse and his back was heaving with violent sobs that Draco couldn't hear due to the privacy spell and he was unbelievably, selfishly glad for this small mercy. Only the previous morning this young man, who was now little more than a pile of misery and fear and pain, had threatened him, had sworn retribution under the Tiwaz vow for every injustice they might do his friend. It was surreal and grotesque and just plain wrong.

Next to Weasley, Granger still rocked herself back and forth, her hands pressing against her ears in a feeble attempt to shut out the world. Her lips were moving quickly as if she murmured to herself, or beseeched her captor, or possibly prayed.

Frowning and tilting his head, Draco stepped closer to the pair, watching those red lips move soundlessly, too quickly to understand anything.

What had they done to her, that she was so broken so quickly? She might be a mudblood, but Draco knew from his own experiences with the Golden Trio that she was brave, a true Gryffindor at heart. By Mordred, the girl had been tortured before by one of the Dark Lord's most feared followers and only minutes later had fought her way out of Draco's manor. That was not something Draco could or would forget any time soon.

No, this was not like Granger at all. Not like Weasley at all, and the question that filled Draco with dread remained: what had they done?

At that moment, a thin film of magic spread over the surface of the mirror, enveloping it completely and Draco raised his eyes to see Harry standing some feet away, his palms pressed to the reflective glass, his expression frozen and stiff. And the mirror shrank, the sides travelling towards the middle where it was held on the wall with hovering charms until it was nothing more than a little pane the size of a matchbox.

With a far too jerky movement, Harry plucked it from the wall and laid it onto his naked, left forearm. And Draco remembered this part, even though he had not paid attention to the kidnapper this last two minutes as he explained his plan to Harry, remembered it from when he had absorbed the memory earlier. Now he could do nothing but watch helplessly as his Gryffindor attached the shrunken mirror with a sticking charm and disillusioned it so that it was almost invisible against the golden tan of his forearm.

He would leave the manor, conspicuously through the front door, so that if something might go wrong and he was discovered, the guardia would be able to observe Draco's and Blaise's hopefully dramatic and determined attempts to keep him inside, thus strengthening the guardia's already carefully fanned impression of them abusing Harry. And if he alerted anyone, his blackmailers would be able to hear it and his friends' lives were forfeited.

Such it had been planned and such it had been engineered.

Blaise and Draco had walked right into the trap laid out for them. But not again.

Slowly, Draco stood. By now, Harry must have arrived at his final location, where undoubtedly he would meet the Vykélari dominant that had been chosen as his mate. Since the Lanais didn't know of the spying potion, they would now probably abandon their masquerade and show Harry their real faces, lead him into one of the manors the family owned and which both Blaise and Draco would be able to identify. It was time to leave this memory and examine Harry's latest ones.

No one tricked a Malfoy and got away with it. Except one Harry Potter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew… well, I hoped you liked the chapter. 
> 
> The next scene was actually meant to be a part of it, but I didn't get around to writing it yet. Anyway, thanks for reading and if you have the time, I'd be grateful to hear your opinion!


	26. The Unforgiven (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for commenting on Night Flight Diminthemoonlight and michlori!
> 
> And michlori, I'm sorry I took so long to update, especially since I told you I'd most likely update so much sooner. But I have had some serious family problems since right before Christmas which really killed my time and my muses and I just didn't manage to complete the chapter even though it was almost finished.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy the next chapter!

Once Blaise had ascertained that there was no help to be found within the boundaries of Italy, at least not from people he could contact without immediately being arrested by the guardia for breaching the terms of their house arrest, it was a depressingly easy decision who to go to for help. There were not exactly many powerful families in Britain that could be trusted to believe Draco and him over the word of the guardia or the Aurors (who might have been informed of the situation by now) and that at the same time possessed enough influence to get a hold of a portkey to Italy in the middle of the night, since most allies of the Malfoys and Zabinis had had ties to the Dark Lord and therefore had recently fallen into disgrace. Even less would willingly go against these authorities, and of those who might, only a vanishingly small fraction would not turn their back and betray them to their parents the moment Harry was safe.

There were actually only two persons Blaise could think of that fitted all these categories and who might be able and willing to answer a call within the next few hours. One of them was Severus Snape who at this very moment resided in Malfoy Manor which could be called a not exactly ideal location in the best of cases: If Blaise contacted his former professor and headmaster there directly, both his mother and Draco's parents would be alerted and Amalyne and Narcissa might come to Italy to force Harry into mating with them once he was brought back home from the Lanais, or worse, lie in wait for Harry at the safe house where the emergency portkey would send the submissive to once Blaise and Draco got him to use the one he had been gifted with, or, if it was lost, the one Draco still carried.  
And that was the goal they were headed for: getting Harry out of Italy as quickly and safely as possible, out of reach from both the guardia and Blaise's relatives and any other dominant who might be after him.

No. Severus, while a powerful wizard and ally, could only be contacted as a last resort or via an intermediary. Which left merely one other person and she was not quite so well-disposed towards former Death-Eaters nowadays after she had seen her best friend being killed in the battle of Hogwarts where the both of them had joined the light side in their last stand: Daphne Greengrass.

Honestly, the short list of allies was a bitter reminder of how naïve they had been throughout their lives, how many bad decisions they had made over the years, depending solely on their parents and wealth. Oh, he could imagine that Harry would have had such loyal friends en masse had the situation been reversed. Friends that Blaise couldn't contact now because he had no mirror connections established with them and no other means of contact available on such short notice. Thus they were of no use, at least until Blaise could find someone willing to act as a messenger. How pathetic was this, the entirety of their deficiencies, foremost the fact that their submissive would have been much better equipped for protecting them than they, the dominants, were for protecting Harry?

But once this was over, once Harry was safe, Blaise swore he'd build up a network of informants and allies that were loyal to more than his money, people he could trust to take risks for him and those he loved. He'd never again allow himself to become so helpless through inaction, having to listen to Harry being taken away, because he couldn't even move his fucking eyes to see him go!  
That determination stirred his magic and it felt like a burning, living entity within him, grim and unyielding, churning in his veins as if it wanted to split him open and burst forth so that it could take over.

It couldn't, though, not without Harry; and even if it was within the bounds of possibility, nothing would come of it as long as they weren't close to Harry and his kidnappers. No, Blaise had to concentrate on and work with the allies that he had, or might gain, and he was utterly determined to sway the Greengrass heiress to their side: while there was a single person left within reach who could help them rescue the Golden Trio without their submissive having to mate any dominant, including Draco and Blaise, he would beg them, bribe them, threaten them! Whatever was necessary.

And so he found himself waiting for his fellow Slytherin to grace him with her attention, brooding restlessly over all the things he should say, lines he could open with, treasures to offer her. But the one fact remained: Daphne's best friend Tracy, one of their own Slytherins, a girl Blaise had spent almost seven years of school with, had died among too many fellow students in the corridors of Hogwarts, fighting on the side of Draco's enemies while Blaise had long since fled the castle; and this was the first time they would be speaking to each other after that fateful day.

It was not as if he expected a warm reception.

Even the House Elves' behaviour echoed their mistress's grief and resentment: It had taken over five minutes for one of them to answer the mirror call, even though the runtish male that finally opened the connection had to have been alerted almost immediately by the incisive chiming Blaise knew Daphne used as a signal for an incoming two-way mirror call. And the brat argued with him – most politely, mind – for another few minutes about whether or not his concern was important enough to warrant waking up his 'mistress Daphne'. If he had to guess, Blaise would say that the girl had been quite open with her aversion towards Draco (and Blaise by extension) and her servants had picked up on it. Oh, of course the Elf was never really discourteous towards him, but he was anything but obliging.

In fact, Blaise had been uncharacteristically close to shouting at the little miscreant, the Italian lilt in his voice worse than ever, when at last he had relented: with a final, almost disdainful sniff and a violent jerk of his oversized head that just might have been a nod, the Elf had asked him to wait and shuffled out of the room, leaving Blaise to stare restlessly at the undoubtedly tasteful décor of Daphne's study that did nothing to distract him from the dark anticipation of Daphne's reaction to his plea, or prevent his thoughts from drifting towards Harry like grimly gleaming iron filings towards a magnet, and to what he'd be forced to do soon or – Merlin forbid – right now.  
Surrounded by enemies leering at him, coveting eyes trained on his elegant markings, those playful feathers ruffling up his raven hair, those gorgeous wings with too many shades of green to name. Assessing him with the glee and greed of a cat that had already caught and incapacitated its prey, searching some kind of cruel amusement in slowly bleeding it out, bleeding Harry out of the defiance and inner strength that was so uniquely him.  
And one of Blaise's uncles or cousins – Nerio perhaps, the bastard, or Taide who had been in charge of leading Blaise through his own inheritance – they would touch him gently, teasingly, intimately as they pushed magic into that golden skin while dazzling Harry with a display of their power in the attempt of enticing him to establish a mating bond.

How much could Harry endure until he broke? With the continued attempts at mind control… and Harry was so young still – all of them were – so inexperienced in all things Vykélari; They had only had a few short days together and their Gryffindor, their colibrí couldn't be expected to throw off the mesmerizing influence of a dominant… he'd be helplessly at their mercy and oh, Blaise knew most of his relatives had little of that to spare.

And they would dangle the perfect bait in front of Harry as well: the freedom and safety and the very life of his best friends. Just in case that the submissive was strong enough to withstand the dominant's advances…

The very thought was excruciating and Blaise got up from the conference table, had to, unable to sit still even a moment longer yet reproaching himself for this blatant show of weakness at the same time. He knew that he should break free of the hellish, endless circle his thoughts were slowly falling into, knew that he needed to calm himself, lest he offended Daphne even further with a careless remark – Harry depended on them for help, depended on them not to alienate whatever allies they had. But it wasn't easy.

The soft sound of a door handle being pressed had him whirl around towards the open two-way mirror, watching in anticipation as first a narrow shoulder and then the rest of Daphne's willowy form, clad in a pale, richly decorated dressing gown, slipped through the crack of the barely opened door. Gracefully and with barely a sound she entered the room, throwing Blaise a penetrating, assessing glance from perceptive hazelnut brown eyes, before she turned her back on him to close the door behind her as silently as possible.

There she stood, just that one tiny moment longer than necessary, creating an ominous pause like the calm before the storm; a pause that Blaise knew was absolutely deliberate, meant to unsettle him. But at least Daphne had come, willing to meet and hear him out. Hopefully.

Releasing a deep breath as silently as possible, Blaise relaxed his posture and lowered his shoulders, softening the tenseness oozing from every pore of his being.  
He couldn't be haughty, couldn't present his opponent with a superior, aloof front, or else Daphne might just outright deny them her help entirely or even close the connection on him before he had a chance at voicing his request. She was a very proud woman and disliked being looked down upon just as much as she disliked people grovelling in front of her.  
But Daphne was also mostly just and a true believer of reason and logic, the traits of Ravenclaw almost as dominant in her as the Slytherin qualities and Blaise knew that keeping a levelled head was essential to swaying the elder Greengrass heiress. And acting the part of an equal asking for a favour and not a petitioner pleading for help. Even if that was exactly what he was.

When she finally turned, he was prepared to not react to the hostility meeting him in the expression of someone he'd have called a close acquaintance if not a friend, before the war. But the twinge of regret at their decaying relationship couldn't quite be ignored, like the continuous throbbing of a festering wound.

And still it was but a dim sparkle against the burning determination to use her ruthlessly and milk her for all her worth, if it only meant Harry's freedom.

Blaise was a man of priorities, the first one right now being Harry – it was another point Daphne could not be allowed to learn of, and Blaise might have even felt somewhat guilty at deceiving her, had he not known that this particular snake's bite was more vicious and deadly than could be surmised from her sweet smile and lovely features. No, the Greengrass heiress could very well take care of herself. Besides, Blaise felt as if he had never been more justified: after all, this was not even to further his own selfish goals but to save Harry.

"Daphne." He greeted her calmly, watching as she walked towards the arm chair set up in front of the mirror and lowered herself onto it gracefully, her lean fingers curling into the open mouths of the lean, wooden vipers forming the arm rests. A formidable woman like queen Medb on her throne, tall and upright and strong.

"Have you any idea what time it is, Zabini?" She asked coolly without returning the greeting.

Blaise almost grimaced at the use of his last name. It was worse than he had thought, then.  
Feigning nonchalance, he calmly returned her piercing gaze. "Four…"

"Five." She corrected him tersely, her voice cutting through the air like a whip. "I'm in England. It is _five o'clock_ in the morning here in England. What do you want at this inhuman time, pray tell!" It was more a threat than a question, her voice vibrating with a dangerous undertone.

"I'm sorry to disturb you so early." Blaise said as diplomatically as he could, pressed for time as he was, and forgoing a direct answer, with a narrow inclination of his head as the only concession to this act of discourtesy. "I wouldn't have if time wasn't of so fundamental importance."

"I suppose." Daphne gave him a tight, humourless smile. "After all a dominant Vykélari wouldn't have revealed his and his chosen submissive's location for some bagatelle." And she waved towards the pair of two-way mirrors between them that was a clear indication of their respective whereabouts, as if there was no deeper meaning to that seemingly careless remark.

Blaise nodded slowly, refusing to clench his jaw and instead balling one hand to a fist behind his back, his lengthening nails leaving sharp, angry indents in his dark skin. Of course Daphne had to have read that defaming article in the Daily Prophet, he'd expected that; but he had hoped for a little bit more sympathy, some sign that she – as a Slytherin and the heiress of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight Families – had at least regarded the words printed by that paper with the proper amount of scepticism. Or maybe the core of her grievances rather lied in the problems the pureblood society as a whole now faced as a direct result of their alleged mistreating of the Golden Boy, Britain's very own darling hero, in which case he would find himself fighting a losing battle with Daphne.  
Or was this simply one of the war's burdensome legacies, the lingering strife between the opposing sides of a civil war? While possible to overcome, it would probably take far too much time…

"I know I haven't been the best of friends to you, Daphne." He began, trying to feel his way around cautiously and appeal to the familiarity they used to share and to the esteem they used to hold each other in. This mutual respect couldn't have been erased so quickly, and maybe it was enough to make her re-evaluate her opinion on the no doubt awful rumours surrounding him and Draco. But Daphne remained the image of uncooperativeness in her silence and stillness, her lips pursed as she regarded him.

Not allowing himself to be discouraged, Blaise continued nonetheless, steeling his resolve. Five minutes, he said to himself. If he couldn't convince her within five minutes, he'd have to turn to Severus for help and deal with his mother and Lucius and Narcissa once they became a problem. Even so, the passing time seemed to pierce him and force its way through his body in rapid, raging currents, filling him with urgency and making his skin crawl.

"We have known each other for years, and I have come to trust you a great deal… I need your help Daphne. My family here in Italy blackmailed Harry and took him away to mate him off to someone else and made the local Aurors believe that they rescued him from me and Draco…"

"Don't, Zabini!" Daphne snapped, her hands clawing into the wood like the talons of an eagle about to leap off a ledge towards its prey or an enemy, grim and outraged as if his words were a personal affront against her intelligence. "Save your charm and lies for someone more gullible!"

The increasing possibility of failure pierced Blaise's stomach then, like an electric shock, the firming notion that he might not be able to sway her, that he might be wasting even more precious time that he didn't have in the first place. Blaise's intent gaze hushed from one of Daphne's hazel eyes to the other, as if he could find the answers to vague, misty questions in her delicate features – what had made her so bitter and hostile in so short a time? Could he change her mind quickly enough for Harry? Should he rather give up, apologize for the inconvenience and go crawl back to Severus and, by implication, his mother and Draco's parents?

But as the moments passed with the two of them locked in some surreal staring contest, the time continuum frozen to a standstill around them, instead of the spontaneous suggestion he had hoped for only a sense of loss overcame him. He didn't want Daphne to think so low of him, didn't want to lose the regard of someone he respected. But moreover, he didn't want to include his and Draco's parents if not absolutely necessary and therefore couldn't afford losing another ally right now.  
"I don't know what you have been told," Blaise pressed on, allowing a hint of righteous indignation to enter his voice "but I assure you, it isn't true!"

Huffing out a trenchant laugh, Daphne leaned forward, her fingers pressing down on the long fangs of the decorative snakes on the arm rests of her chair. "But it is, Zabini. I personally verified the facts because I didn't want to believe it, or rather, because Astoria didn't want to believe it. The silly thing still clings to any and all scraps of news of Draco." She huffed a snort in which disgust and anger strove against each other. "I had hoped that her infatuation would wane after the announcement of your engagement… well, maybe now it will."

Blaise frowned, shifting his weight from one foot to the other with a hint of annoyance piercing his movements, making them harsh and abrupt. "The article was the usual Prophet nonsense, Daphne! We didn't mistreat him, we never attempted to force him to mate – Merlin, we didn't even intend to mate him in the first place when we brought him to Lanai Manor! Not really. All we did was bring him to my manor here in Italy and yes, we kept him from leaving, for Merlin's sake! But that was…"  
Blaise halted for a moment, realising the lie that had almost effortlessly rolled off his lips just in time. He had sworn to do right by Harry, and telling the truth about what had happened just a few days ago was just as much a part of that vow, as saving and protecting Harry was at this moment. Moreover he didn't want to lie about their relationship with the Gryffindor; besides, Daphne wouldn't have believed it anyway.

"Fine," he said, his voice fraught with tension, and defiant defensiveness "to tell you the truth, I'd say it was about 40% appeasing our parents because they insisted we take him to Italy, 30% worrying over our own reputation, 20% protecting Harry and 10% …" Blaise took a deep breath, letting his eyes rush unseeingly over the wall behind Daphne, wanting so much to just rake his hands through his hair and over his face in frustration and not able to in front of this woman. "10% was an eventuality we didn't even believe in at the time."

Deceptively, Daphne relaxed back into the soft cushions of the arm chair, looking more like a spider pressing back into its hideout to wait for prey than the well-bred pureblood heiress she was. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, but the painful stiffness of her fingers, as if they had been clenched for hours, belied her tenseness.  
"So he didn't write a letter to Weasley and Granger, asking them to free him because of you and your House Elves holding him captive? He didn't attack _you_ in particular, Zabini, because he felt threatened? And you didn't manipulate him with magical impulses?" One corner of Daphne's full lips twitched into a mockery of a grim, disdainful smile.

"Don't bother denying it, Zabini." She whipped up a hand to halt whatever protests Blaise might throw at her, even though the dark skinned Italian was too staggered at that moment to come up with anything plausible, a sense of being trapped gripping his chest as if he were a wolf cut off from its pack and surrounded by forest fire.

"You have no idea how furious I was when a friend of mine who works at the prophet told me about the new development in the Malfoy-Zabini-Potter scandal, just to warn me in advance that my foolish little sister is ruining her reputation, still stubbornly declaring her loyalty and affection to your idiotic fiancé to whoever bothers to listen. It's going to be all over the Prophet in less than four hours, Zabini!"  
Daphne snarled, her chin raised aggressively, and her hand cut through the air to encompass all their alleged idiocy and depravity. "I still gave you the benefit of a doubt and made sure to verify all the facts. The guardia sent that letter to the Aurors to confirm the magical signatures. There is no doubt about it: Potter wrote it, his magical signature is all over the paper, which bears the heraldic animal of _your_ family! How stupid could you be, Blaise? How moronic? Kidnapping the Boy-Who-Lived is one thing, but giving him access to letter paper with _your family's emblem_? You _Hufflepuff_!"

Blaise groaned internally, closing his eyes for a short moment. By Merlin, that damned letter! Wasn't it enough that the guardia thought them guilty of abusing Harry, now the entire British wizarding community would as well as of the following morning? Couldn't fate leave them with something, anything to fight back?  
No wands, no possibility of leaving the manor without being dragged right into the Italian wizarding prison by the guardia, no allies…

And now he also understood Daphne's irrationally furious behaviour, because in her eyes theirs was the worst offence of all: unknowingly and unintentionally Blaise and Draco had involved the one Daphne loved the most: her little sister Astoria. Blaise knew the girl had had a major crush on his lover for quite a long time, had hoped to catch his attention when the two of them had broken up before the war… and those feelings had never really faded, even though the smart young girl knew quite well and should already have accepted that she stood no chance with the Malfoy heir, especially now after Draco was officially engaged.

It hadn't exactly endeared the girl to him, but nonetheless Blaise felt touched that Astoria was trying to defend them. At least someone was.

However, the woman in front of him was far from finished with her tirade. Rising to her feet she stepped closer until her harsh breath misted up the mirror between them for a second like the poisonous breath of a Lernaean Hydra.

"I don't care for your problems right now!" She stated with an air of finality. "And they won't even remain your main ones for much longer. Just you wait and see, Zabini." She said, much too calmly for comfort, her smooth voice dripping with grim satisfaction as she folded her hands in her lap as if she was doing nothing more than discussing her picnic plans for the next day. "After that article is published tomorrow, I will watch your family fall, and the Malfoys as well. And I'll make sure that you won't pull any Greengrass down with you!"

With that, she raised her wand, about to close the connection and Blaise couldn't allow that to happen…

"Wait, Daphne!" Blaise called out, rushing to his feet and towards her, only stopping when it appeared as if they were standing right in front of each other, barely two handbreadth between each of them and the reflective surface of the two-way mirror.

"Yes, Harry wrote that letter, I won't deny it." He rushed to speak. "But he didn't attack me because I threatened him, but because I was trying to make him accept his inheritance, despite him being agitated over the whole 'submissive' thing. It was an accident that surprised him as much as it did us, and afterwards he agreed to have us teach him how to control his magic. And we only used magical impulses on him during his first transformation, when he couldn't hear or see or speak. He was hurt and afraid; it was the only possibility to calm him down!"  
Blaise licked his lips, interrupting his speech to take a much needed, deep breath. In front of him, Daphne had tilted her head, her face having closed off. It was still grim in its cold beauty, still free of compassion, like the harsh surface of a frozen and snow covered lake. But at least she was listening.

He opened his arms, lifted his hands palms up in a gesture that might have been misunderstood as a surrender.  
"Regardless of what you believe, regardless of what you think is true, I swore a Tiwaz oath to Ron Weasley, only this very morning, that I would do right by Harry. And I will."

There it was, a tiny fissure in the polished granite of her façade. Her eyes unerringly lowered themselves to his forearms, where the unblemished robe he was wearing would not have been able to hide a bleeding Tiwaz rune.

But Daphne narrowed her eyes, probably doubting his words. It wasn't as if he could prove even having made that vow without the benefits of a wand. Daphne pursed her lips warily. "If that was the case, why didn't he speak up for you by now? Why not go to him for help? Apparently you were able to contact him in some way or another."

"I think he and Granger were used to blackmail Harry into leaving the manor." Blaise answered with a hint of hesitation, knowing that what he said sounded more like a spontaneously spun lie than the truth it actually was, an unsteady card house build in a rush and unfit to survive even the slightest hint of breath.

Taking a step back to re-establish a more polite distance between them, Daphne regarded him pensively, seemingly calmer than she had been during the whole meeting. "To my knowledge, they were not reported missing and I'm sure it would have caused a great stir if they had been. I think I have even seen them around the Prophet around midday yesterday."

Blaise frowned. That meant that the blackmailers had to have taken Harry's friends only a few short hours before contacting the submissive…  
In any case, that was only of minor importance right now, paling in the face of Daphne's scepticism.

Blaise leaned in closer, holding her gaze intently and letting her see his graveness, the anxiousness. "We are not sure what happened," he conceded, "but his behaviour led us to believe that the blackmail was about Granger and Weasley, maybe even Weasley's sister. He has been forced to leave, of that there is no doubt. And even if I lied, Daphne, even if I wanted to use you to get Harry back and force him to mate – don't you think I know that I would never get away with suddenly reappearing in London with the Golden Boy as my mate, now that the public is already thinking us to be his abusers? The Wizengamot would probably just allow someone, most likely Harry himself, to put a compulsion on me and Draco so that we could not use Harry's power. Even mated Vykélari are not invincible and Harry would manage the impossible somehow; he always does. Then they'd probably take all our possessions and money and gave it to him as well. We'd be ostracized! What power a mating would potentially bring would become useless in the torrent of hate the wizarding community would heap on our heads. He is their hero and they will not stand for him being taken advantage of. I have no illusions about that."

Huffing, Daphne turned aside, pushing her chin forward defiantly. But that she wouldn't continue to hold his gaze, the little spark of insecurity right before she had faced away – it gave him hope. "And that is why we need to get him out of Italy back to Britain as soon as possible. I have one emergency portkey left, and Harry is wearing another one, if they haven't discovered it and taken it away from him by now. But I need someone there at my safe-house to make sure he stays safe."

Slowly, Daphne's eyes found his, disbelief written all over her delicate features. "You would send him away from your side?"

"Of course." Blaise nodded and pressed on, rushing through his words now that Daphne was listening while the relief of finally telling someone who could actually actively help swallowed him whole, siphoning off the tension and adrenaline that was keeping him working even through his tiredness. "You need to send an owl to Severus and tell him to go to my safe house and wait there for Harry. He'll complain viciously, but protect him nonetheless."  
Draco's godfather was the only wizard able to fight off both Narcissa and Amalyne and could be trusted not to expose them to the Aurors afterwards. And Severus was also the only one besides their parents, who knew the exact location of the safe house.

"He is at Malfoy Manor But Draco's parent's and my mother can't learn of it! It is imperative for Harry's safety. I need you to also contact Pansy and some of Harry's allies: McGonnagall has the connections and power to get portkeys to Italy for a few of them." After all, the woman knew the minister and while Blaise was aware that both had been Harry's allies, he could imagine that the headmistress was by far easier to convince. She might even be the only one who might be able and willing to get them help in time, now that the public and probably the ministry had been utterly turned against them and everyone sharing their last names; she was known to be fair and practically a war hero herself. Everybody who had stood behind Dumbledore, stood behind McGonagall as well.

"That Werewolf Lupin is a good fighter and he'll come to Harry's help no matter what." Blaise continued, remembering what their Gryffindor had told them about his father's friends only a few hours ago.  
"And the Weasleys will most assuredly help us, Harry spoke with them less than twenty-four hours ago and they know we didn't mistreat him. You especially need to see whether Granger and Weasley are safe and well and what happened to the two-way-mirror that we had Pansy give them so that Harry could converse with them if he wanted to. It is most likely the method the blackmailers used to get to Harry in the first place. But Draco is currently trying to find out more… and if someone could perhaps get hold of wands for me and Draco; ours were confiscated by the guardia."

For a moment, Blaise went over his words, assessing eyes raking over Daphne's unreadable, unblinking eyes and parted lips. "And when that is done, the Aurors should look over the letter again. I'm pretty sure that there will also be magical signatures on it that shouldn't be there: From the time frame I suspect that one of my Italian relatives currently in Britain intercepted Harry's letter before it reached his friends and then sent it to Italy so that the Vykélari council could pretend in front of the guardia that they were tipped off by some anonymous source that we mistreated Harry."  
They probably had used the portkey shipment to get the letter back to Italy. It was a ministry operated business that used portkeys to ship parcels and letters between countries. Quick but expensive.  
Narcissa herself had used it to send Adler's and Ives' paintings to them.

"Weasley and Granger probably never received it, which means that someone stalked their home and intercepted their letter. It should raise enough suspicions that we may convince the guardia to look into the matter again or even return our wands."

Daphne huffed and tapped with the tip of her wand against her thigh as silence fell between them, and Blaise waited with baited breath for the Greengrass heiress' verdict, not daring to interrupt her thoughts now that he had done everything he could, now that she needed to process his words and decide.

Of course Daphne would have to realise that Blaise had primarily requested help from Harry's friends, from Gryffindors, who would be able to directly interfere if Draco or he should try to force Harry to mate. It would be nigh impossible to coerce the submissive to initiate the bond under the watchful eye of his long-time allies, men and women as powerful as headmistress McGonagall and minister Shacklebolt.  
And if they were indeed innocent of the crimes they were accused of, and someone managed to prove it, Astoria would be known as the brave, loyal, insightful young woman who had an admirable sense of character instead of the naïve, foolish girl that couldn't let go of a childhood crush, even if the boy in question was a monster, an engaged monster. So Daphne would have a profound interest in proving them innocent, if it was at all possible.

Now she only needed to come to that realisation as well.

Which she did, not even ten seconds later – the longest and most agonizing ten seconds in Blaise's life so far and he couldn't help slumping a bit, as his tensions transformed into sudden relief. Daphne was a powerful ally, her family was, and his spirits lifted with her at their side: they'd get Harry back to Britain and to safety and they'd smash his uncle for what he had done, ruin him until he was either in prison, or shunned by the public, or, if it couldn't be avoided: dead.

* * *

  
Barely half an hour after Daphne had relented and agreed to help them, a large barn owl had been sent on its way to Severus Snape though they were yet to receive an answer from the former Professor, and the Greengrass heiress herself was speaking to headmistress McGonagall while Astoria, who had been summoned by a House Elf, was on her way to the Lupins and Weasleys with the usual efficiency that seemed to be an inherent Greengrass treit.

Draco had returned to the conference room not much later and told his lover the essentials of his findings in hushed voices so that no other would know of the means they had used to come by that information (if anyone learned of the spying potion, questions were bound to arise, questions about where else it had been deployed and that might lead to a reconsideration of Narcissa's and even Draco's cases, not to mention the almost sure conviction of Lucius).

Blaise had been horrified and outraged over what Draco had told him, the knowledge of his own family having tortured Weasley and Granger in front of the submissive making his heart race in his chest with the need to crush them and ache for the Gryffindor at the same time.  
More than ever his current helplessness threatened to burn away his reason and he found himself pacing up and down the conference room, waiting for news from Daphne, or from Draco – because, to add to his agitation, his blonde fiancé had almost immediately left the room again so that he'd be able to continue monitoring Harry via the Pensieve that was fed by a steady stream of the submissive's experiences, watching over him.

It was not something that sat well with Blaise, for his lover was even paler than usual, visibly shaken by what he was seeing in those silvery depths; and he was clearly holding back from telling him some details that might be irrelevant to their task of finding and saving Harry, but obviously important enough to chip at Draco's very being, shattering his nerves like waves over waves of earth quakes did with the foundations of a house.

But right now it was not something that could be avoided: someone had to go through this, suffer the same visions and emotions that Harry went through and Draco, having already seen those of the past day, was better equipped to understand what was going on. They didn't have the time for Blaise to go through Harry's memories that the spying potion had collected, as well…

That still didn't make it any easier, knowing his fiancé was undergoing such torture, knowing that Harry was _living through it_ , without being able to help. It was aggravating and making him fidgety, chapping away at his concentration, something that he just couldn't afford…

Suddenly the door to the conference room was pushed open, bouncing off the wall with a loud, resonating bang that pierced Blaise to the core, the too fast beating of his heart stuttering and stumbling as if the pacemaker cells had lost their rhythm like an interrupted music ensemble falling silent one after another.

Blaise whipped around to face the door, seeing just in time as Draco rushed in, his movements so agitated that he practically fell into the room rather than walked, and his erratic steps seemed more random than anything. It was a wonder he managed to stay upright.

"Draco!" Blaise called out, appalled, and with a few quick steps he was in front of his lover, clasping his arms to steady him and to be able to look at him properly. He was a sight to behold and Blaise felt his stomach drop as he took in the rumpled hair that appeared as if Draco had pulled at it viciously, the bloodless skin, paler as any vampire's. His eyes were… troubled was too weak a word. Not haunted, not horrified, or not only… determined, yes, determined and … hurt, glistening suspiciously.  
But that might have something to do with the sour stench of vomit.

And when Draco panted out Harry's name, Blaise almost felt sick to that level as well. Something horrible had happened, and a sudden fear gripped him. This was a reaction far more severe than Harry being forcefully mated would warrant… Was he dead? By Merlin, had he refused and been deemed a liability? A witness and enemy who couldn't be swayed and couldn't be turned loose, what with the danger of him mating someone else and coming back for revenge?  
"Draco! By Morgaine, what happened?" he asked, already dreading the answer.

"We need to get to him. Now, Blaise! Now! We cannot wait!"  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you go… I hope you enjoyed the chapter! In any case, I look forward to hearing your opinions. But I'm already ducking behind my cover in case you want to throw stones at me for another mean cliffy…


	27. Breaking Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all fort the wonderful reviews on the last chapter!
> 
> A special thanks for this chapter goes to **RighteousHate** , for her unending support, her input, friendship, and for looking over my insane ramblings and correcting the worst of my mistakes!
> 
> **WARNINGS: .** Graphic description of violence, blood and gore, angst. Seriously people, if you have issues with some of these things, stop reading the story, or wait until I post the summary with the next chapter.
> 
> By the way: If you want to wait until all the angsty stuff is over before continuing with Night Flight, you can give me some way of contacting you (Mail, PM on fanfiction. net…) and I will do so, once everyone is safe again.
> 
> Now to my MIA status: I’m sorry, life just got in the way and I really can’t promise that this will get better in the near future. I learned with Night Flight, that I can’t really do a WIP, because I’m a slow writer, what with me writing in a foreign language and all, and because I lack the time to do frequent posts. I won’t do a WIP again, apart from the stories that I have yet to finish, because this is frustrating for me and for you.
> 
> Now please enjoy!  
> 

In many ways it was a rushed, ill-planned rescue mission that the residents of Lanai Manor made to set out on, but there was not much more they could have done: as it was, their only means of transportation beyond the incredibly fast but still too slow brooms were the horde of loyal House Elves, which were also their only weapons of sort. Their lack of wands hopefully wouldn't matter much though, because the moment they apparated into the nightmarish chaos raging at the old country estate of Blaise's family, the guardia would be notified and soon a squad would arrive to drag the fugitives back, armed, well-trained and experienced. But upon witnessing what was actually happening there, they would have no choice but to interfere and assist them. They had to! And to hell with the consequences of transgressing the terms of their house arrest!

At least that was the plan.

Little did they know that the spark of doubt that they had sowed in the mind of the young guardia member, Ettore Carracci, had turned into a blazing fire, making him abandon protocol.

And yet this young man, a scion of a long line of successful, high-ranking guardia members, had at first been so very sure of the two Britishers' guilt when he and his colleagues had set out on their arduous nocturnal operation. Only the fact that they were not strictly under Comissario Mancini's command but under a civilian's, had left a somewhat nasty taste in his mouth, especially since he held little regard for Eleuterio Lanai.

Nonetheless the Lanai's were considered to be respectable wizards, and the letter the submissive had apparently written was authentic, that was beyond question. Even the British Aurors had confirmed with absolute certainty that Mr Potter's well-known magical signature was all over the paper, and that at the time the words had been written, no other wizard but he had touched it.

Still, Malfoy's and Zabini's words hadn't left him untouched, had planted a seed of doubt into his mind that he couldn't get rid of, however much he yanked at the visible shoots. Not necessarily because the two men had been so very convincing, but because he knew that they – the vaunted guardia – would be guilty of destroying an innocent life and their very own reputation, if it were true. Not to speak of the consequences it might have on the relationships between the Italian government and the British one, if they just looked the other way while England's beloved war hero was abused and blackmailed and magically and physically raped.

And when it took nothing more than a few inquiries, a few minor investigations, it would be grossly negligent to keep idle.

Thus, after the Comissario and the other guards had left, content in their belief that they had done a competent job, had saved a young man from a horrible fate, Ettore had stayed behind under the pretence of taking over the unloved night shift. But instead of watching over the almost two dozen little bells that would ring in case Malfoy, Zabini or one of the other accused violated the terms of their house arrest, Ettore concentrated on trying to lift the lid on this night's happenings, hoping that it would give lie to his misgivings. And he had started where every investigator would, his instructor's lectures ringing in his mind: with the silent witnesses to a wizard's every deed: their wands.

But against all his hopes, the magical tools had not given any proof to the cussedness of their owners. On the contrary. After dousing them with a potion designed to prolong the effects of a Prior Incantato, and watching a long line of phantom images that replayed the latest spells performed in reverse order, Ettore had to admit that there not only was no evidence for any kind of abuse, but that in fact everything indicated to the three British Vykélari being in a consensual relationship. At least, it seemed as if they were courting or dating.

Of course, the clues he had weren't much to go by, but if he used the apparitions to synchronize the spell progress of Malfoy's and Zabini's wands, and considered the exact shapes of the magical phantoms produced by the Prior Incantato, Ettore could roughly reconstruct the main cornerstones of the past day with relative certainty.

The first charm he had been able to contextualise had originated from Zabini's wand. It was nothing extraordinary, just a sticking charm that the young man had activated on the ground of a Pihassan chariot; but it indicated that they had either played pugna aerea or had used them as an exotic means of transportations. Either way, they had left the grounds of Lanai Manor and there had to be witnesses, because in certain circles it was a common knowledge that neither Zabini, nor the Lanais owned winged horses, preferring to rent the animals instead of investing the extensive time and care needed to create and cultivate the unique bond between beast and wizard. In fact the Battellis often used their most frequent clients, the illustrious Lanai family, to advertise their services. They must have brought a chariot to Zabini, who was a Lanai by association, and they had also fetched them later on, because the Britishers had only used the vehicles once. If Ettore was lucky, the Pihassan's owner had seen the young submissive, could maybe attest to his treatment…

In any case, after they had left the manor, the two Britishers had at one point used warming charms, and applied them to a wizard's body – often enough that it could hint to a third person having been there, though a sceptic would point out that they might just have used it multiple times to increase the effect.  
However, from the necessity of using warming charms, it became apparent that they had either reached the mountains and had been forced into higher, colder altitudes, or they had done so of their own decision somewhere else. That at least spoke against pugna aerea because the famous game was played close to the ground.

Interestingly, the next spells had fastened belts around three waists with sticking charms. Three. Even though he had no idea what they had needed the belts for, the fact that there had been three of them cemented his suspicion that Potter had been with them.  
It followed a row of spells that Ettore couldn't really make sense of as they seemed little more than gimmickry. But then Zabini had used a pensive. Repeatedly and over a prolonged time span, placing memories into the liquid only to take them out again, and again and again in that very distinct pattern. Either they had taken a very lengthy trip down memory lane or, which was much more likely, they had watched a pensive play together.

An expensive pastime.

After another apparition they had made use of a certain magical signal normally used when trying to draw the attention of mobile wizarding facilities or vehicles and since apparently transportation was not the problem (they had apparated after all), Ettore guessed they had had dinner at the floating restaurant above Rome or Venice – it was the only other application for this kind of signal that he could think of. Afterwards they had apparated home and hadn't performed any more magic beyond the spells Ettore and his colleagues had witnessed when the two dominants had tried to keep Mr Potter within the wards of Lanai Manor.

All these little snippings of information culminated in one baffling conclusion: The three young Vykélari had been on a date. It was grotesque and unbelievable and so very unorthodox. They had taken an unmated submissive out into the public for a date. But that wasn't the most surprising thing: aside from being dangerous in case someone spotted them and recognized what Potter was, the submissive himself would have had enough chances to contact someone, at the restaurant if nowhere else. So why hadn't he? Why – if a few days earlier he had secretly asked his most trusted friends to come and free him – why had he not tried to escape when the chance presented itself? Why that change of heart?

Could the letter have been a brilliant fake? Could the British Aurors have made a mistake? Or were Zabini and Malfoy lying? Perhaps they had blocked Potter's magic while they had been out, thus rendering him helpless while trying to propitiate the boy…

Even if he pretended to believe the two foreigners for a moment, how should the Lanais have managed to get a hold of anything or anyone that could serve as blackmail material against someone like Harry Potter, Britain's very own war hero? Even more puzzling: how had they contacted Potter?

Because his suspicions and the inconclusive evidence of the Britishers' wand were by far not enough to convince his superiors (or even himself, if Ettore was being honest), and because he was not willing yet to risk the tremendous repercussions of interfering illegally into matters of a Vykélari courtship, Ettore had proceeded with his investigations, attempting to find someone willing to testify that Potter had been abused, or held captive by the two accused. Or not.

Contacting the floating restaurant of Venice proofed to be a waste of time, since he could not find any proof of the three young Vykélari having been there.  
But in a floo conversation with the manager of the restaurant in Rome, Ettore had better fortune: the complete top floor had been booked by the Battellis, but arrived had three young men. And even though they had apparently not looked like Malfoy, Zabini and Potter, Ettore would bet his shirt that it had been them.

And according to the restaurant's staff, the three men had had a wonderful time together: laughing, joking, dancing. They'd been there for hours.

So Ettore made another floo call; this time contacting the Battellis.

To his surprise, Tore Battelli, the head of the family, had answered rather quickly, as if he had been awake at such an early hour, but he didn't dwell on it, instead focusing on drawing the information from the older wizard he so desperately needed. It took him quite a bit of convincing, sweet-talking, and reassuring but finally, finally Ettore had an eye-witness willing to testify under verita serum that Potter had been a willing guest at Lanai Manor. More importantly however: he had apparently allowed the two dominants to court him, which they had, with much effort and sensitivity.

Not losing any time, Ettore had contacted his father, the current Generale of the guardia who had then summoned an extraordinary meeting between the minister and the Senato della Magia, the official legislature of the Italian wizarding community, who upon hearing what had transpired that night decreed an official disempowerment of the Italian Vykélari council, enabling the guardia to interfere into a courtship and legally search for the submissive.

However, while the last signature was affixed to the document, there was no one in the office of the guardia to hear the two small silver bells starting to clamour for attention with their piercing ringing, signalling that Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini had violated the terms of their house arrest.

* * *

One and a half hours earlier Harry was led away from Blaise's and Draco's paralyzed bodies and it was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do in his entire life, which was saying something. Every step felt weighted down as if he was wading through a swamp, every little movement only pulling him deeper into the thickening bog that grew ever more reluctant to let him go, weighing his legs down.

If only he could utter even one reassurance to them, he might calm down enough to be able to properly concentrate on finding the one (and probably violent, with his luck) expedient to the trap he was walking into, but with the Aurors still glancing at him with the same pity and concern a phoenix with ripped off wings might gather, that small mercy was as much a physical impossibility as a foul-free quidditch game between Slytherin and Gryffindor.

Maybe it was better this way, though; Harry wouldn't have had an inkling as to what to say to them anyway. Any apology that might measure up to what he had done to them, to all the trouble he had caused them, would need more than a few pathetic seconds filled with stammered half-finished sentences.

After all he was leaving them behind helplessly at the mercy of a handful of experienced Aurors who might have no qualms whatsoever about showing them the whole extend of their disgust – which was, to Harry's regret, also his fault.  
Or partly at least. Harry was neither naïve, conceited nor self-destructive enough to claim the lion's share of the responsibility for this disaster. Not when there was the man next to him handily present to blame and who commanded his attention, holding his elbow firmly enough to make it clear that he didn't wish the submissive to break loose but not so firm as to risk raising suspicion from the Aurors.

But what should keep him from doing just that, he wondered in a moment of sober clarity – or insanity, the daring idea entering his mind so suddenly that he almost faltered in his steps.  
Why should he not raise the suspicion of the officials? No, why not go a step further: he could rip himself loose from the tight hold Eleuterio had on him, rush back and reveal the whole atrocious plot to people who could actually interfere in the one moment that was out of his blackmailers' control… Would it not be foolish of those conceited bastards to kill Hermione and Ron when a dozen Aurors would know where to search for the culprits? It might even force those men to obliviate his friends and let them go as inconspicuously as possible to try and hush it all up, getting rid of all evidence so that they could pretend that no one had ever been kidnapped in the first place…

The possibility left him reeling, the spark of hope almost too painful to bear, a flare that consumed his breath for the endless span of a moment.

It didn't take long for the high to deflagrate, though, the flame dying due to a lack of air, because Harry knew that he could never be sure whether his blackmailers would even follow the laws of logic.

Common sense was not so common after all.

And neither could Harry be entirely sure that the Aurors would help him, what with the Vykélari laws prohibiting any interference; worse, he couldn't even rule out the possibility that they might be in on this blackmail as well, in which case Blaise's family might retaliate against either his friends or the Slytherins to punish Harry for even trying to denounce them.

Harry would never dare to play with his friends' lives. Never. He just couldn't.

Still, Harry couldn't help but look back to where Blaise's and Draco's forms were half hidden by the bustle of Aurors and half veiled by darkness. He followed the determined tugs on his arm only reluctantly, longing to be able to take an option he was too cowardly for and regretting not being daring enough to exhaust all his options before handing himself over.

But it was of no use and he had never been one to wallow in self-pity. Harry had committed himself to going through with this, and going through with it he would, if only to eliminate the threat so that it couldn't creep up on him or his friends in some feint, foggy future that was still too distant to take proper shape.

He had a plan to follow as well: create an illusion of weakness, get to Hermione and Ron and free them and if it wasn't feasible, attack and force those men to relinquish his friends. Should that possibility be out of reach as well, if it came to the worst, there was still one last emergency plan resting reassuringly against the skin of his wrist in the form of a thin bracelet: the portkey Blaise had given him. It was only an insignificant weight, almost invisible, one he had considered to be a thoughtful but ultimately useless excrescence of paranoia. Now it might save not only his life, but those of his friends as well. He could escape to England, rally his allies, the press, the minister… anyone. He could witness to the extent of cruelty hidden within a major part of their society; and with his fame, with his own reputation and position, he could denounce it. He could stop it and hope it wouldn't be too late for his friends by then.

It wasn't the best plan one might come up with, Harry knew that, of course he knew it, but he had never been a brilliant strategist. That was Ron's metier. No, if there was one thing Harry was good at, it was thinking on his feet, improvising, and it was that ability he would have to rely on…  
At least this didn't seem as bad as their brilliant scheme of breaking into Gringotts without any inkling as to how to get out again.

Harry could only hope that the shrunken, traitorous mirror sticking to the skin of his left forearm like some leech, hidden beneath a disillusionment charm, had not alerted their malicious eavesdroppers to the portkey. When Blaise had mentioned it a few minutes ago, and then Draco, Harry had quickly pressed his hand down on the mirror to muffle the words, but maybe not quickly enough. The thought was harrowing, nauseating, a cancerous insecurity in his chest that threatened to become malign and spread throughout his body. Harry couldn't even begin to imagine how bad this situation might become if he was hopelessly trapped within their manor.

He might die. And Ron and Hermione with him.

A shiver crawled down Harry's spine, chilling him, and he swallowed a few times, his dry throat clicking far too loudly in the silence around them, only disturbed by the periodic echo of their soft steps on the springy grass. He didn't want to go on a suicide mission. Not again.

The sound drew Eleuterio's attention and with narrowed eyes the man regarded him closely, subjecting him to a precise and intense scrutiny that Harry just had no patience for at the moment. He just wanted… just wanted this night to end without any corpses.

"Don't worry, Mr Potter. You will see: by tomorrow, everything will be alright." Eleuterio murmured quietly, whether to reassure him or to bring him to heel, Harry didn't know. But for whatever reason, the words softly sank into his consciousness and deeper, a seed of determination and acceptance, because for the first time this night Harry found himself agreeing with one of his blackmailers. For one of them it would be alright tomorrow. And for the other it would at least be finally over.

Whether Harry would have managed to save his friends, whether he himself would be able to escape… it would already be decided in a few hours. Until then he could only take this situation one problem at a time and whether his blackmailers would take away his escape route was not something Harry could change at this point.

At least he could take comfort in the knowledge that Draco and Blaise would be safe, that at least the Aurors would make sure they wouldn't be able to interfere. It wasn't like the battle of Hogwarts where his allies, countless children, had rushed into the thick of the fight without him being able to oversee the chaos.

He could still see their corpses lined up on the dirty floor of the Great Hall in rows that seemed far too long to comprehend, to bear.

Whatever legal consequences the Slytherins would have to face, it couldn't be worse than possibly losing their lives at the hands of Blaise's relatives. And not having to worry about Draco and Blaise would leave him able to concentrate on saving Hermione and Ron…

And on not getting creature-married.

As if sensing his thoughts, Eleuterio tightened his grip on Harry's arm and forced him to turn around with a sudden jerk that halted his current line of thoughts as effectively as it did his steps. Harry came to stand right in front of him, almost propelling into the other's chest, and he felt the small feathers in his hair rise in irritation, threateningly. Grimly he glared at the man, thinking about how lucky he was that Harry already had better control over his magic than he used to, or Eleuterio would have found himself thrown a few yards like a rag doll. Just as he had done to Blaise on that first day at Lanai Manor, but a hundred times worse with his magic now fully rested.

Already, it churned and hissed at the treatment, burning to lash out, and holding it back felt like trying to keep a dam that was already forming cracks from crumbling completely. The skin on Harry's back prickled and itched with the want to release his wings so he could threaten the unwelcome dominant off and unbeknownst to him, the markings on his face and the sides of his ribcage bled out of his skin, the swirling lines and curls glowing along with his irises in a vibrant, menacing green.

Eleuterio stared at them silently for a long moment, then his assessing, cold gaze rose to meet Harry's, again probing him with dark eyes that appeared to be totally black now with the absence of any light source beyond the dim stars. They were full of intent and steely harshness, speaking of grave consequences should Harry step out of line even once.

This time, though, Harry was better prepared and he would have huffed out a dryly amused snort at this attempt to intimidate him, had the graveness of his situation not been choking any spark of humour. Too often he had been the sole recipient of the penetrating, pale blue gaze of a man far greater, far wiser and far, far more powerful and perceptive. Eleuterio Lanai was nothing against one Albus Dumbledore, or even his portrait. Neither could he compare to the red, murderous eyes of Tom Riddle. And how he wanted to tell the bastard that! That he was a nothing, an insignificant insect amongst millions. But he doubted the man would believe anything but the favourable whispers of his own ego.

For a moment Harry wondered whether he should threaten Eleuterio, make him squirm like he was trying to do to him – it would be so simple to remind him that the last man he had killed had been a lord level wizard who had been a mass-murderer himself. But right now they were underestimating him and that was a precious advantage, a gift he couldn't afford to spurn.

Docilely, Harry lowered his gaze, his voice still a bit tight as he murmured "If we could just get it over with…"  
But he needn't have bothered: the attempt at appearing harmless was rendered useless with his markings still blazing a furious warning signal to anyone insane enough to approach him.

Despite the threat, or because of it, the corner of Eleuterio's lips twitched into a thin smirk. "But of course, Mr Potter." He said with his honey sweet voice dripping with false compassion. "Hold on tight!"

Before Harry even had the chance to look up or prepare himself for the familiar lurch of side-along apparition that always left him feeling queasy and disoriented, the man had tightened his hold on his arm and the darkness around them dissolved into a flurry of whirling colours and lights.

Even though he had somewhat expected it – how else but with a port-key or side-along apparition would Eleuterio take him to wherever he was supposed to meet his would-be mate – the suddenness awoke that darkly ominous unease within him; his instincts, honed by forced travels to a dark manor or graveyard and the horrors that had awaited him, screamed at him, raising his hackles.

This experience wouldn't prove to be much better. After the colours and lights gave way to the warm glow of numerous candles, before he even had the chance to regain his composure and balance and sense of direction, a feeling of deep-rooting anxiety swept over his skin, cold and sticky but streaked with the thinnest, strongest threads of pure magic. Like a spider web it clung to his body, following each motion. They were wards, his mind provided a moment after the sensation registered, wards that had snapped into place as soon as they had arrived to keep Harry from disapparating and probably from doing a number of other things as well. Now they solidified around him, closing in on him, and he could feel their hold, their power as they pressed down on his body and magic as if they wanted to suffocate him.

It made him cringe away uselessly and shudder and hunch in on himself and not quite consciously he reached out with his magic to rip those threads apart before they could really bind him for good. He hadn't even touched their filigree structure however, before something cold and hard snapped close around his throat from behind, biting into his flesh, growing hot and hotter. Ripples of a foreign power streamed out from the thing, floating over his body like some glutinous fluid, encapsulating him from head to toe, and his magic, wilful and wild, was forcefully cut off from the small tendrils it had sent out and they were lost to him, like fingers chopped off with a cleaver.

Harry shook himself violently, horrified, but he was helpless to stop his magic from being entrapped within his body. It pulsated maddeningly underneath his skin, raging on like a hurt, feral animal in wild panic, throwing itself against the bars of its cage while around him the wards settled unhindered as a notable weight on his shoulders like a heavy woollen cloak.

Harry's eyes went wide as he realised what had happened and he gasped for air as if in pain, his throat closing off. They had bound his magic, they had truly… he grimaced, ripping himself free of Eleuterio's hold with a strangled groan, stumbling backwards and almost tumbling to the ground. Frantically, his trembling fingers flew to the band of unforgiving metal – a collar, he realised with dread and disgust exploding in his chest. It had melted into his skin and was adapting to his every movement, flexing with the tendons in his throat. Harry felt out the smooth surface, covered with small indentations and lines that formed inscribed runes, trying to find some leverage, some way to rip it off.

But whatever he did, the collar wouldn't budge even the fraction of a millimetre.

Of course Harry had on some level suspected this might possibly happen, had known that they would most likely restrict his magic in some way or another, but the reality of it was more disturbing than he could have imagined: he could feel his magic within him almost like a physical entity, pushing against the barrier, twisting and struggling, and he strained and fought along with it. The streams within him solidified and dissolved only to appear at a different point beneath his skin, testing out its cage for weak points and finding none, and it was so rapid and arbitrary that it left him dizzy and panting, his muscles spasming ineffectively.

But the entrapment held and as the pointlessness of fighting against it registered, when he was forced to realise that it was either giving up for now or completely and uselessly exhausting himself, his magic sizzled and vibrated and pushed once more so strongly and furiously that Harry felt the strain of its force against his ribcage, as if he had breathed in too deeply. Then, just as suddenly, it curled back, vibrating with ominous potential like a lion ducking low to the ground, lying in wait for its chance to attack.

In the remaining limbo, Harry was left trembling, kneeling on the ground with his fingernails clawing into the narrow gaps between small, white and black tessera beneath him, until his knuckles were white and his nails just shy of splintering. His breath didn't come easily for a few moments as he tried to get used to the sensation of his skin being too small for his body, too small to encompass his flesh and bones and magic at the same time.

Insanely he wondered whether breaking his skin might free the force caged within him, whether, if he clawed his flesh open, his magic might spill out along with his blood, drowning his enemy in red and gold…

He shivered and groaned, the image chilling him down to his very core and Harry clenched his eyes shut, trying to gather himself back together. At least, he tried to tell himself, it was still there; at least he could feel the swirling, flowing power within his very core and didn't suffer from the sensation of utter loss that had overcome him during that fateful full moon a few days ago, the damn night that had started it all. He wouldn't have been able to bear it right now: being helpless and magically depleted at the same time.

"Are you alright, Mr Potter?" A deep voice echoed slightly through the wide hall, clear and authoritative. Harry froze for the blink of an eye as his senses and his instincts, his very being honed in on that one presence in the room, his magic stirring within his core, vibrating furiously. Because this voice… this accursed voice was the one that had welcomed him into his rooms that evening, that had threatened him and his friends and had ordered him to deliver himself up on a silver tablet.

Harry whipped his head around and there stood the man it belonged to, only a few meters away from him when ten thousand would have been too close, his wand still raised from binding Harry's magic.

Quickly he jumped up, not able to stand being in a more vulnerable position, a position of inferiority, not while he was still feeling so jittery from the binding of his magic. The need to be on a more equal level with his blackmailer, right now, right there, suddenly seemed as vital as breathing even if it meant gulping down the feint nausea the fast movement brought.

Somehow, this man's direct presence discomfited him more than the sudden apparition and the magical block combined. And the recent memories of his friends' screams, the cold cruelty with which he had ordered their torture had him tense and franticly alert, expecting the worst and restlessly wondering what the worst could be.

And all the while Harry harshly berated himself about how exceptionally stupid this notion was. It was only a figment of his imagination, carefully nurtured by that man to make him insecure and weak. Voldemort had tried to do the same: making his opponents and servants alike think that he was more than he was: more powerful, superior, more mystical and wise. More than a simple human being of flesh and blood. All just so that they would rather die than risk his wrath, rather obey than fight him.

Harry should know better than to let it affect him! Especially since this wasn't the first time that he found himself unarmed within enemy territory and he knew, he _knew_ that any wand could curse, not only a leader's. He couldn't afford to let this man draw all of his attention, couldn't allow himself to concentrate only on him. And that was as deeply ingrained into his unconsciousness as the movements of flying were into his muscle memory.

Still, Harry wouldn't leave him out of his sight. Couldn't. Never completely. But he warily looked around, efficiently taking in the entirety of the hall he had been apparated into, registering every person and their weapons, their stances and expressions, every door or entrance, every corner that might hide another nasty surprise, allowing the practiced movements to centre him.

He counted nine wizards and witches: two women and seven men, most of whom had strategically positioned themselves to easily contain Harry, should he somehow step out of line or even try to flee. Four men of various ages had encircled him, including the psychopathic bastard who had contacted him through the mirror, and Eleuterio who had backed away from Harry, getting himself out of reach of the vicious, poisonous claws that could sprout from Harry's fingertips in a moment's notice.

And behind his blackmailer a younger woman, a black-haired, hawk-faced witch with a grim, challenging smile, and another man in his early thirties barred the room's only exit in the form of a wide archway framed with bricks that lead to what seemed to be a sitting room, as if waiting for him to panic and run.

All of them had their wands drawn and at the ready, firmly held in one hand that was raised waist-high, not quite pointing at Harry yet, but the fracture of a second away from doing so. Their appearance betrayed their readiness to attack, dressed for duelling as they were with clothes that were easy to move in and wouldn't hinder or slow them down. Their hair – even the men wore it long – was tied back and their postures spoke of a level of experience that was unsettling: the slightly bowed knees and wide, secure stances, the ease in the wrists of their wand-arms… these wizards probably knew their spell-work, their calm confidence and poise said as much.

Harry eyed them warily, his heart beating fast but steady in his chest. It seemed that they weren't underestimating him as much as he had hoped they would or expected them to from Eleuterio's haughty, self-absorbed behaviour earlier.

Beyond the tight circle of this quartet of guards, the room emerged as a spacious hall with only a few pieces of dark, wooden furniture lining the rather ancient looking, pale grey stone walls: a lean side table stood centred at the wall behind him, right beneath a wide mirror. It was decorated with an artful floral arrangement of different grasses, small red and yellow flowers and a few, long and thin feathers. A gaunt, almost delicate man, bent with age, stood beside it and considered him thoughtfully, assessing him through still sharp eyes that seemed like small but shining, murky brown gems in between all those deep furrows and wrinkles, a face that seemed as ancient as the stones the man leaned against for support, burned and lined from decades over decades of a busy, eventful life.

But the old wizard at least didn't carry his wand in his hands, ready for use, only holding a thin robe thrown over one arm, and the casualness of his posture and stance at least didn't threaten an imminent attack.

Quickly, Harry continued his rushed but thorough exploration, his gaze flickering to his right where a wide alcove was embedded into the wall. There stood a pair of elegant leather chairs facing the room, a small, oval, table between them, delicately lathed and ornamented with rich carvings.

The arm chair on the left was occupied by a black-haired woman, old and serene enough to create an air of regality around her but young enough to still retain herself a fragile beauty, like a widely open rose in the very moments before its petals started to fall. She wore a pale, long dress embroidered with a dark floral pattern and adorned with small pearls glistening in the light of the chandelier right above Harry. Her slender, delicate hands rested in her lap, one of them holding an almost white wand of bird's eye maple but she regarded him with cold disinterest, one perfect, haughty eyebrow raised critically, as if he was nothing but the leading actor in a mediocre play at a nameless amateur theatre, and Harry immediately let his gaze drift away from her, knowing that she was unlikely to attack him as well. She was the kind of woman who let others fight her battles and maybe that was the reason why she seemed so out of place to Harry, in this situation, and amongst these people who were more prepared and willing to viciously and ruthlessly wrestle him down rather than negotiate his surrender, let alone welcome who they wanted to be the new addition to their family.

But the other man in the alcove immediately caught Harry's attention. He was rather young, maybe a few years older than Harry himself, Bill Weasley's age perhaps, and he stood looming beside the elder woman's chair, stiff and unmoving like an intimidating statue. With them so close to each other, one simply couldn't ignore their striking resemblance, marking them out as close relatives, most likely mother and son. The same high, distinctive cheek bones adorned their faces, the same tightness in the jaw line, and narrow lips. Only her features seemed to be more finely chiselled as if she had been the model after which a sculptor had crafted his face in a hurry, leaving it with a sharp-edged roughness that had its own appeal.  
In contrast to her, though, he was dressed totally in black and even his wand, resting in a holster at his side, was made of ebony.

That was not what drew his interest, though. No, something intriguing in his posture and expression made Harry take notice, something in the way that he refused to even look remotely in the direction of the submissive so unwillingly abducted into their home and how his arms were folded in front of his chest defensively. If it hadn't been such a grotesque idea Harry would say that this man, who might seem dark and sinister at a first glance, was even more uncomfortable with this mad situation, than Harry. Everything about him screamed of aggravation.

Harry blinked in surprise, but before he could follow that discovery further a movement to his right made him redirect his focus to the old wizard who had now pushed away from the wall and was approaching Harry with slow, hobbling steps, a small, crystalline bottle in his spidery fingers – wherever that had come from.

It held a clear, apple-green liquid, wobbling drops of gold moving sluggishly within and the unexpected sight of it made Harry tense again instinctively. Because regardless of how much he didn't understand the fine art of potion making, his lack of talent didn't make him unaware of how dangerous they could be. What if they wanted to weaken him further, or dose him with a love philtre? His heart raced, each furious beat hammering another of the limitless possibilities forth into his awareness. Could they just make him into a mindless puppet, unable to defend himself or even object?  
If it was true that Harry was as powerful as they made him out to be, then he couldn't think of anything worse than giving that potential into the hands of people who had already proven that they had no scruples against kidnapping teenagers and torturing and killing them…

Harry swallowed drily again, for an instant regretting that he had come here, that he hadn't been smarter, hadn't been able to think of anything to do, still couldn't think of a way out, while knowing that there never had been another choice for him the moment his eyes had fallen onto the cowering forms of his friends. Even so, he couldn't help but clench his left hand into a fist, the portkey there searing his skin, a tempting, cruel reminder of how easy it would be to flee this very moment, that maybe it would be the better option, the smarter one… .

But it would possibly mean Ron and Hermione's death.

Suddenly the same cold voice as earlier interrupted his miserable labyrinth of thoughts, but more steely and hard, a sharp note of censure tinging it, as if his blackmailer could think of nothing more vexing than Harry's lack of politeness. "If I ask you a question, Mr Potter, I expect you to answer it."

Startled, Harry glanced towards the man, still standing there so regally in his dark, silk-embroidered robe. It took him a few moments to even process the words, let alone remember what question it was he was supposed to answer. The knowledge that he couldn't do anything to prevent them from forcing this potion on him, the spark of fear it exuded, like a seed of darkness, still stole the stableness out of his thoughts and he had to hold on to them with much effort just to attempt to put the flighty shreds of reason back together. It didn't make it any easier that he had been awake now for twenty hours. Or that his magic rumbled inside his chest like a furious beast, snarling and hissing and clawing at his concentration, making him want to bare his teeth and attack.

Oh yes, and this bastard had the guts to ask how he was when he had been the one to do all this to Harry…  
"Spare me the pathetic attempts at politeness!" He pressed out, hoping that his voice didn't sound as rough and upset as it did to him. "There is really no way you can make this alright! It's just crude… And I'm not drinking that!" He added forcefully, backing away a step or two.

To Harry's surprise, the old wizard actually stopped advancing on him, frowning down at the bottle in his hands and then at Harry. "Mr Potter," He began, his voice scratchy and calming, almost incomprehensible from the very strong accent. But he spoke slowly, carefully as if he was paying special attention to each and every word that left his lips. "It is just a tonic that will soothe your magic. It must be aggravated right now. Nothing more than a simple calming draught infused with Hesperides's Nectar to appeal to your magic. Perfectly safe to drink, I assure you."

Harry shook his head sharply. They could tell him what they wanted, he had no reason to believe anything they said! But apparently, at least their leader didn't want to give him that choice.

"You can take it willingly or have it administered by force." The man said in an almost bored tone of voice and Harry shot him a nasty glare, hating him more with every second, every icy word that left his lips. But his blackmailer only raised an eyebrow in challenge, a confident reminder of how defenceless his scheming had left Harry.

"Either way: you will take it. If you don't calm down, your magic will prevent every attempt at mating and I thought we already established how that might end." He halted for a moment, pursing his lips as his gaze roamed Harry's body. "And hide your markings! I won't have my son-in-law strut around with his most precious assets on display like that."

Harry's face reddened, feeling mortified and embarrassed and sick all at the same time and his hands twitched at his sides as he resisted the urge to cross his arms in front of his naked chest. Instead he raised his chin, glaring defiantly at the man. "In case you forgot: you were the one who didn't give me any time to…"  
"Mr Potter," the old man interrupted him with his scratchy voice, practically thrusting the robe right under his nose. His intense eyes seemed to almost beg him to comply, conveying a warning so clear that it had Harry's stomach clench into tight knots with anxious frustration and he swallowed the biting comments about to tumble from his lips, lowering his gaze as he berated himself. He was in no position to anger his captors, and by god, he didn't want his friends to pay the price because he couldn't stop himself from smart-mouthing.

Without saying another word, Harry snatched the thin garment out of the wrinkled hand and slipped into it, covering his bare torso with the soft texture. It wasn't much and the caress of the silken fabric on his bare skin almost made him feel even more naked than before, but it was at least some kind of barrier, even if it was a frail one. When he finally raised his gaze again, it was to the sight of the fragile vial being held out to him.

Feeling very much like a trapped animal, Harry closed his fingers around the small bottle, but made no move to unstop it. He couldn't take it, not while it could possibly worsen his situation even more – and with it Hermione's and Ron's odds of survival. But he couldn't not take it, either… Harry so didn't want to uncover the madman's vengeful streak again…

"Well?" His blackmailer prompted, finally having lost his rather insignificant amount of patience. "We don't have all night!"  
Harry drew an unsteady breath. If only his mind wouldn't always jump to the most daring, most brazen solutions at hand…

"I came here willingly, didn't I?" He murmured quietly, licking his dry lips to win a few seconds. His nails lengthened slightly, scratching at the crystal glass that was still warm from the old wizard's hands, leaving behind a tiny, white scrape.  
"And I said I would mate whoever you wanted me to mate if you would release my friends in return." Slowly, Harry looked up at the cold Italian. "And yet you obviously don't believe my word, welcoming me with raised wands, using all those wards, binding my magic… so how do you expect me to believe yours?

Taking a deep breath, Harry raised his chin with a confidence he didn't feel, hoping against hope that his opponent would stay calm and reasonable even through the words he'd have to speak, willing him to damn well understand that he had reached the limit of what he could possibly concede. "You say you'll release my friends if I obey you? Fine, but without proof I'm not buying it. I won't mate anyone, with or without this potion, until you let them go!"

_'And not after, if I can prevent it'_ , Harry added within the privacy of his own mind, before dashing the vial to the ground with all the force he could muster, smashing it against the many black and white, small stones that formed the intricate, geometric mosaic beneath his feet. It exploded with a loud clash in a mess of sticky green-golden drops, artful splashes and glistening shards. Clipped sounds of outrage filled the room, the perfect circumflex to the shattering of the glass and one or two of his captors raised their wands higher, the threat clear and unmistakable.

Harry observed it out of the corner of his eyes, tense and alert, but his gaze remained intently trained on his blackmailer, watching for any kind of emotion in that steeliness, some sort of reaction that might give him some hint as to what to do, what to think, what to expect, hoping fervently that the exceptional hearing of his Vykélari captors wouldn't pick up on the furious drumming of his heart and think that he was bluffing, even while he himself wondered whether he was.

Something twitched in the wizard's face, a little bit of the haughty, calm sophistication falling away like spalling paint to reveal some of the ugly, mad darkness lurking beneath but it was gone just as quickly like the shadow of a hunting peregrine rushing past, and Harry wasn't even sure he had seen it at all.

"You needn't have done that, Mr Potter." The man remarked coolly after a few more moments of tense silence as hard and chilly as a meters thick ice sheet. "I am willing to meet reasonable demands if they are at all compatible with our own goals. However," he lowered his voice ominously, tilting his head, "I am growing weary of this rebellious streak of yours."

At his sides, Harry's hands clenched into tight fists to keep them from trembling. The last time he had gone against this man so openly, Ron had been tortured into a mess of twitching muscles, agony and fear, and the utter helplessness of the experience still lurked darkly at the edges of Harry's consciousness, made him torn between the burning desire to attack that madman, and the need to beg him not to hurt his friends any further, to offer him anything in return.

Before he could say anything, the young man in the alcove shifted where he stood and his voice – a nuance higher and smoother than Harry had expected from such an imposing figure – broke the heavy silence.

"I don't think threatening him is in any way conducive to calming his magic down, father…"

Harry blinked in surprise, first at the unexpected intervention, then at the use of that title and his stomach dropped, the little hints and facts merging with dizzying swiftness into the harsh certainty that this was his intended mate and the knowledge drove itself mercilessly into his mind like a long nail, however much Harry had tried to avoid even thinking of the man they wanted him to share his magic with. And his body. Gods, Harry didn't know which was worse.

And yet, the only thought that he could clearly form was that he should have known… Hadn't his blackmailer said that Harry was to mate his son, a man only eight years his elder? There was only this one person in the room that was roughly of the right age, only this one man, the son of a woman sitting there enthroned as if she owned the place, as if she knew herself to be above them all – a woman fitting to be the wife of the haughty, power-hungry bastard who would spare no effort, leave nothing untried just to catch the one and only submissive Vykélari still in existence and bind him to his family.

But he hadn't even wanted to think about his would-be mate, still didn't in a way. He didn't want to be able to put a face to a man willing to commit such atrocities, but more than that, Harry didn't want to see the man he would have to kill if he couldn't prevent all this from happening.

Suddenly the memory of his first impressions rushed to the forefront of his mind, of how suspiciously he had behaved … Quickly, hopefully, Harry turned around to face the young wizard, their eyes locking, cautious forest-green meeting cold, murky agate.

Intently, Harry assessed the man, searching fervently for the discomfort or the anger in those hard features that he had thought to have seen there earlier, a steely coldness seeping into his skin when he came up blank again and again. It couldn't be just gone now, and Harry knew with absolute certainty that there had been something there, some form of… of… outrage, anger, frustration…

And yet…

Nothing. The stony eyes regarded him with the same cool, calculative interest that one might show an enemy during negotiations, and the crossed arms didn't seem so much defensive, but rather unapproachable, only creating an emotional distance between them that was even more chilling now that Harry knew that this was his intended mate.

The disappointment was keen and sharp in his chest and it almost felt like a small betrayal, as illogical as that was.

An almost amused huff whipped through the entrance hall as the leader observed Harry's reaction and he waited until the younger Vykélari had hesitantly faced him again before he spoke, his eyes drilling into Harry's green, haunted ones even while he addressed his son.  
"Fine, Taide. You'll have your will. In the future, it will be your duty to see to your mate's education and his manners. If he is going to be a Lanai, he should behave accordingly."

His words and voice were dismissive enough and yet, the cruel glint in his eyes and the unforgiving harshness of his smile spoke of a man who held grudges over literally nothing and Harry knew that even if he complied willingly now with everything done with and to him, he'd be made to pay for his defiance in some way, once (no, _if_ ) his position as that man's, Taide's, mate was secured.

"Enough of that for now." The man finally said after a few more moments of silent assessing, straightening his posture. With an elegant flourish, he raised his wand against himself, murmuring a series of "Finite Incantatem!" and with each of them, a small fraction of the carefully erected image of blandness fell away, revealing a thin, almost gaunt face with hawk eyes and a long, thin nose like a raptor's beak.

"Please forgive this charade." He said, in a voice smoother and slicker than it had been before. "But I had to stay on the save side in case you bailed on our agreement. You may call me Valerio." The man inclined his head, his dark eyes never leaving Harry's.  
"And this is my wife, Ricarda," with an elegant but curt wave he indicated the woman in the arm chair who didn't give as much as a nod to greet Harry with, only regarding him coolly and Harry found himself despising her almost as much as her husband.

But Valerio already proceeded with the short introductions, commanding Harry's attention as he half turned towards the woman and the man behind him who were still blocking the entrance. "My daughter Alessa and her husband Marco. These gentleman" he gestured to the three other man encircling Harry, "are my brothers Eleuterio and Umberto; and this is Ignazio, a close friend of the family. My uncle Aldo," the man nodded towards the old wizard, "who is here tonight to watch over your wellbeing. As a healer and a Lanai he has specialized in the treatment of Vykélari. Lastly, my youngest child and only son: Taide. Your mate."

Valerio tilted his head, regarding Harry thoughtfully. "Don't concern yourself with trying to memorize any names for now, however. We do have a tight schedule to follow, since my ill-begotten nephew will hardly remain idle and you seem to have some very passionate, well-connected followers yourself." The odd smile froze a bit at the mentioning of such nuisances, but Valerio continued almost casually, as if not wanting Harry's attention to linger on any potential obstacles to his becoming a Lanai. It didn't work entirely, though, and Harry's rebellious streak bloomed like a twig touched by the first mild breaths of spring, even though he couldn't help the anxious, ominous feeling from settling like barbed wire around his intestines as the man spoke again.  
"Now." He said with finality. "I will give you the proof you asked for and even more: an incentive that I think will greatly improve your – and our – determination to bring this to a quick conclusion."

Curtly he nodded towards his son before turning swiftly on his heels, striding ahead while Harry was ushered out of the entrance hall with one of Taide's large hands on the small of his back urging him on. Before he even knew what was happening, Harry found himself hustled and pulled through a narrow corridor with a low ceiling, so low that it made him feel even more trapped, surrounded by a mass of bodies as he was, the bodies of his captors.

Then the walls opened suddenly, a wide, wooden door giving way to more open space, the cool night air letting him breathe a bit freer again. Briefly, Harry could glimpse a large, rectangular cloister garden behind a row of pale pillars that glowed in the starlight, then he was past them and the sky unfurled above him like some black, velvety canopy, spotted with sparkling gems of pure light.

In a firm, unrelenting reminder of his damnable presence, Taide's large hand pressed against his back, pushing him forward. Stumbling, Harry was made to follow the course of one of the paths that divided the grass covered ground of the courtyard into a jigsaw of symmetric flower beds and patches of grass and bushes and exotic plants. Everything soon vanished into the night, merging into a colossal body of darkness from which the centre of the cloister garden blazoned forth like a beacon, illuminated by dozens of floating candles. They hovered above a round, cobbled terrace, empty aside from an enlarged two-way-mirror that Harry guessed was the counterpart of the one he had seen in the plane next to his friends. It had to be.

His throat closed off as if someone were choking him with cold, small-boned hands, and Harry's eyes flitted instinctively from that window to his very own nightmare to Valerio and back again. Was that mad lunatic still angry enough to unleash his frustration on 'Mione, on Ron?  
It gnawed at his insides, the question eating itself deeper and deeper into his guts like sizzling acid. And when they were barely there, only a few metres parting them from the mirror, he couldn't help but utter a quiet "Don't do it!". Only Taide reacted at all, his hand moving to grasp, and slightly squeeze Harry's upper arm.

But Valerio turned a moment later, taking in Harry briefly, intently as if committing his distress to memory, before facing his wife. A few Italian words were spoken in hushed voices and Taide's grip tightened to the point of being painful, pulling Harry closer against a solid chest. It made Harry's magic stir within his chest, sensing the powerful aura of a dominant, and for a moment Harry feared what the subtle, pervasive compulsion might make him do… ill at ease, he squirmed, trying weakly to get away, but Taide held him close, pushing calming sparks of magic into Harry's skin and it felt all so wrong! Harry had never had anyone but Blaise or Draco do this to him and somehow that tiny bit of magical interaction was already too much, too intimate to bear from someone else, especially in a situation like this.

Half overcome with sickening worry, half with the dizzying nearness of another dominant that had his stomach in knots, Harry searched an anchor in the sight of his friends, fervently reassuring himself that they were alive and had not been tormented further; but they wouldn't even face him and Harry could only hope that they wouldn't hate him for this, and that the pair of devils weren't discussing their demise right at this moment here in front of him. Or more elaborate methods of torture.

He looked back then, to where Valerio and Ricarda stood facing each other, all their considerable focus honed in on the other person as if the world could fall around them and it wouldn't touch the smallest, most insignificant part of their being.  
With an air of solemnity and regality, Valerio drew his wand, gracefully steering the thin piece of wood through the air and two small, round pillows of red velvet appeared, glistening in the light of the floating candles like two pools of blood where they lay to Ricarda's and Valerio's feet.

Then, slowly they eased down, almost floating, the rustle of their robes the only noise in the quiet night air, until they kneeled on the ground in that bloody pool of velvet, not once breaking each other's gaze. Each movement was given so much attention, and it all looked so awfully much like the preparation for some kind of ritual that Harry really, really didn't want to witness…

"I believe you!" Harry called out and strained against Taide's hold, unable to let this go on much further. Somehow he knew this would become epically bad. "I don't need a proof!"

Again he was ignored, his stomach cramping painfully as he looked to his friends again – at least they couldn't reach them there, right? Whatever this ritual was supposed to do, it wasn't meant for Hermione or Ron…

But was that really better?

The other woman – Harry had forgotten her name – stepped towards her parents, the pale wood of her own wand still at the ready and pointed at the kneeling pair. At the same moment, Valerio reached out with his right hand, receiving Ricarda's white, delicate hand in his larger, darker one, holding it gently, tenderly. Their daughter stepped closer until the tip of her wand rested where they touched.

Then Ricarda spoke, her voice that carried easily through the night was hard and low, confident and clear.  
"Will you, Valerio Lanai, promise to never hold anyone captive who to your knowledge claims an allegiance, friendship or kinship to Harry Potter from the moment that he mates with our son, except in the defence of yourself or your family, friends or allies?"

Harry held his breath for the cruel length of the second it took Valerio to answer, surprise and anxiety warring for dominance in his chest.  
"I will." The man said quietly and a thin, read thread of pure light slithered out of the wand held to their joined hands, winding tightly around them.

"Will you promise to never directly or indirectly harm or hurt anyone who to your knowledge calls himself a friend, family member or ally of Harry Potter's from the moment on that he mates with our son, except in the defence of your family, friends, or allies?"

"I will." He answered without hesitation and Harry watched a second thin strand of magic rope around their forearms. Was this how a magical promise was made? Was this … was this an unbreakable vow?

Ricarda glanced towards him then, her eyes gleaming with a cruel malicious spark, too hard to be called gleeful, too intense to be called cold. "And will you, should Mr Potter not have mated with Taide by midday today, do whatever necessary to kill these, your captives," Curtly, she nodded towards the mirror, "as long as it won't endanger you, your family or your allies?"

Harry's heart skipped a beat and his magic erupted in a bright, parching explosion that blazed its trail through his muscles and nerves only to be forced to a sudden stop when it impacted with the unyielding barrier it had been bound with.  
"Wait!" Harry called out, straining violently against Taide's hold, throwing his weight against the arms wound around his chest while his magic pulsed furiously under his skin, pushing and pounding. All for naught. "Wait! Don't… damn it, you stupid… I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO DO IT!" He screamed desperately, the shout ringing through the air.

Valerio turned half-way to face him, determination written into every, grim line of his expression. "I will." And a third tongue of reddish flames licked over their wrists, along their arms, the three threads entwining tightly and sinking into their skin as they both pulled back their hands.

Speechless, Harry slumped into his mate's embrace, trembling with the force of his still twisting and writhing magic as he gaped at the pair. "How could…" he muttered, aghast, forest-green eyes boring uncomprehendingly into Valerio who was helping Ricarda to her feet like the gentleman he really wasn't.  
"I don't even…"

"There is no need to uselessly repeat yourself," Valerio interrupted him coldly, "I heard you the first time. You will learn… _Harry_." He drawled. "It's as simple as that. I am sure a wizard of your stature will have no problem to grasp a concept that should come naturally to you anyway. You _are\em a submissive after all. But first," he tilted his head, a twisted expression hushing over the cold façade, "you will give me the portkey you are carrying. We don't want you having to fight such a temptation after all, do we?"_

It was as if the world narrowed around Harry, cruelly slowing down to savour the nauseating churning of his stomach that made thinking almost impossible. Even his magic curled back with discomfort.

His hands twitched at his side, one with the desperate desire for his wand, one with the need to hide the sudden heaviness of his one and only escape plan – or perhaps to use it? A word fell from his lips, involuntarily and almost too low to be heard, barely more than a gasp. "Three…"  
But more than this first number to activate the portkey would never disturb the nocturnal air. While it might be stupid and naïve Harry couldn't be anything but who he was: loyal and courageous to a fault, a good friend… he couldn't leave Hermione and Ron behind at the mercy of their tormentors, knowing that in a few hours' time they'd be dead. And who knew how long they'd be flying? How long it would take the plane to land so that they could be reached through apparition? Surely too long. Surely the time was chosen so that Harry would have no chance to save them before they'd be slaughtered.

And a second later the choice was taken from him anyway, a silencing charm hitting his very cheek, the flash of energy stinging like a slap to his face. Unprepared, Harry couldn't stop his left hand from jerking forward as someone cast an Accio at the portkey, alerting his captors to its whereabouts and moments later there were hands on his arm, holding him still while someone groped for the invisible band of silver around his wrist, finding it within seconds.

Harry didn't struggle, staying passively in the circle of Taide's arms while glaring coldly at the man who took away the bracelet, the one meaningful gift he had received from the two Slytherins, watching with a clenched jaw as it was destroyed.

Life had been a harsh teacher, but Harry had learned to pick his fights and right now he realised that there was nothing he could do but comply with his blackmailer's, his captor's wishes. At least he now knew that making this sacrifice would not be for naught, even if he could not find real comfort in that fact.

But he'd bide his time and when the right moment arrived, he'd make sure they would pose no danger to anyone anymore, ever again.

The man, Harry thought it was Valerio's son-in-law, frowned at him suspiciously, catching on to the determination in his eyes, but obviously unable to interpret it. Harry didn't care. Should they think what they wanted to.  
For now, he'd be good, he'd mate that man like they wanted him to. And in the end he would kill him. Fervently Harry begged whatever deity would care to listen that their feelings and sensations wouldn't blend the moment he'd crush Taide Lanai's body, that he wouldn't have to feel his heart stop beating, his lungs take their last breath… he wasn't entirely sure whether he could stay sane through such an experience.

For Ron and for Hermione, though, he'd go through much worse. Still, something fluttered in his chest like a sickly, dying bird, aching and cold. What was left, was solely driven by the single-minded determination of saving his friends and attaining justice… or revenge. Harry wasn't quite sure whether he could differentiate between the two anymore.

* * *

_It was downright surreal, how soberly and efficiently they proceeded and explained their actions, and it filled Harry with a crippling consternation and, well… angry hurt, because it seemed to reduce their crimes against him and those, whose immeasurable importance to him couldn't possibly be overestimated, to a triviality, a bagatelle._

It made his skin crawl and bile rise in his throat with pure disgust.

"To relax you and appease your magic." Someone cooed at him as they held him still, forcing that same green and golden liquid down his throat that he had barely evaded earlier. "You will feel much better in just a moment!"

"So that you can properly focus on the essential things." They said as they veiled the two-way mirror with a wide, white cloth, hiding the sight of his tormented friends.

"You need to be physically close" They reasoned as they made him sit down between the legs of his kneeling future mate, his back pressed against the older man's chest, and he was enveloped in strong arms and wings that had the colour of tarnished silver.

"You have to imagine how it will feel like: your magic will join, the barriers of your awareness and perception will blur." They advised when Harry simply didn't know what to do.

"Focus on your magic. It might be wilful but you are its master. Force it to accept your mate!" They ordered him, when Taide's magical advances dripped off his skin like droplets of water from a waxen surface.

"You should better suppress your misgivings, Harry, or we won't be finished in time." They warned coolly. "You have to wish the bond into existence!"

"You need to focus!"

"Concentrate!"

"Allow his magic in!"

"Do it!"

"Do it, now!"

"Now, Harry!"

"Stop!"

Harry flinched at the harsh voice of his future mate, and he held in his stomach as if he could evade Taide's right hand that pressed against him before fanning out, rubbing soothing circles over his skin, the warmth sinking into Harry's body through the thin, silken layer of the dark blue coat he had been given. He wasn't at all comforted.

Almost Harry wished that the damned potion had worked, at least then he might be able to mate the damned asshole and get it over and done with. But as if his magic recognized it as an intruder, it attacked the foreign influence viciously, encapsulating and absorbing it until Harry could think clearly again. Only the golden velvety Hesperide's Nectar burned through his body irresistibly. But instead of dazing him like he feared it would, it strengthened him instead with its invigorating sparks of pure, natural magic, chasing away his weariness and leaving him more alert, yet still filled with rage, disgust and anxiousness and the desperate feeling of being trapped. It felt like being crawled over by millions of ants.

Only an hour ago, he would have cheered at this unexpected, small mercy. But now, when all it did was making him unable to mate, his magic downright refusing to obey him and do something he so obviously loathed, he couldn't help but resent it as he grew ever more tense, because with every passing minute, he could feel Hermione's and Ron's lives slipping through his fingers.

Shrouded in Taide's domineering presence, the tight pressure of his wings and arms around him, the hotness of his breath against his neck, surrounded by his very smell, and with Valerio's cruel, unhelpful comments, Harry couldn't escape that state of mind, however much he tried.

"Let him rest for a few minutes." Taide spoke out behind him. "Then we'll try again."  
As Valerio gave his consent in the form of a very curt, displeased nod, the dark wings closed in on him like the gates of his very own, personal hell until he could see nothing but all-embracive blackness and hear only the sound of his own breathing and Taide's and the soft rustling of feathers.

Blaise had held him like this before, Harry remembered reluctantly, his throat closing up, and some part of him wished fervently that he had just mated with him and Draco, then nothing of this would have happened! If only…

Slowly, Taide's hand wandered from his stomach downwards, interrupting the painful thought and Harry tensed as it stroked over his hip and his thigh, to press down on his muscles, an insistent reminder of just where and with whom he was. And what he was supposed to do. But gods, if this perverted asshole thought that Harry would just roll over and let him do whatever he wanted, he had another thing coming!

Harry shook himself, taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes and tried to calm down. If he wanted to see this through, he needed to steer his thoughts away from the anger and disgust, needed to accept the man as his mate. Still, he found his jaw clenching and his hands balled into tight fists as Taide's fingers started to play on his skin, drawing a line down his thigh. Couldn't he just leave him be, for just a few minutes, so that he could catch his bearings? Wasn't that why he had asked Valerio for a break?

The fingers retreated for a moment before moving in a zigzag line over his thigh, purposefully and steadily. It was unsettling, far too intimate, another in a long line of violations he had had to endure this night.

"Please stop." Harry whispered, frustrated, the limit of his endurance reached long ago. But Taide didn't, his forefinger moving in another line over his skin, before drawing an angle.

It was too deliberate, too unemotional. The touches were firm, not at all teasing or exploring… and the realization washed over him with the stunning shock of a bucket of ice-cold water. Harry froze, not quite sure what to think, what to believe, only knowing that the man he hated so much, who wanted to force him to mate him, was trying to secretly pass him a message…

Barely daring to breathe at all, he waited and felt another angle being drawn.  
One after the other, Taide wrote the letters on his thigh and even through his wariness and suspicion Harry couldn't entirely smother the sparkle of hope that kindled in his chest at the words he read.

I-W-I-L-L-H-E-L-P-Y-O-U

Dear god… Did Taide mean it? Or was this some elaborate attempt to trick Harry so he wouldn't be quite so opposed to mating this very man?  
If only he had some possibility of verifying his sincerity… but with his magic caged within his own body, Harry could not even initiate a temporal connection, even if his magic hadn't hissed and boiled in his veins, guarding his body and his magical core with vicious determination, fuelled by the disgust and anger of its owner.

Meanwhile Taide continued to write his letters on Harry's leg with bold, confident lines and curves and with each word, Harry's suspicion faded into disbelief and anxious excitement, his magic sharpening within him, calm and quiet like a predator that had found a new focus.

T-A-K-E-M-E-H-O-S-T-A-G-E-A-N-D-B-A-R-G-A-I-N-F-O-R-Y-O-U-R-F-R-I-E-N-D-S

In the middle of the sentence, Harry turned around incredulously, overcome with the need to see Taide's so solemn eyes, trying to read his thoughts from them. But it was too dark and the Italian was far too good an actor.

Was he aware of just how daring a plan this was, how dangerous? Almost gryffindorish in its nature this plot could – and most likely would – end in Hermione's and Ron's certain death, maybe even Harry's, or, however unlikely, it could mean their escape. Nothing in between. In any case it would culminate in nothing short of a contest of determination, the outcome of which depended on so many circumstances Harry couldn't possibly predict with his very limited knowledge about his enemy… he was highly disadvantaged.

But it had the tiniest chance of succeeding: if he managed to take Taide captive without a weapon, if his captor's valued his life and integrity enough to not attack him straightaway, if Valerio thought him capable of hurting his youngest child, his only son. If the cold-hearted bastard even cared at all about his children… If all of that was true, then it would lever out the unbreakable vow, which stated that in the case of an unsuccessful mating Valerio had to kill his friends as long as his family, friends and allies wouldn't be endangered.

It was only a dim ray of hope, but when had that ever stopped Harry? Of course agreeing to a risky act of recklessness like this would look like nothing short of an act of desperation, but then, Harry was desperate. At least if he did this, he could honestly claim that he had tried everything. And fortune favoured the brave.

With no further hesitation, Harry grasped the hand resting on his thigh and squeezed it tightly, the warm skin a stark contrast to his clammy, slightly damp fingers. Hopefully it would suffice as a sign of his consent, he couldn't possibly speak with all these keen-eared Vykélari dominants close by.

Immediately Taide drew back his hand and Harry frowned uneasily. Had he been misunderstood? Anxiously he was about to turn around, but before he could do so, there was the sharp, firm pressure of a wand at his neck. Harry's eyes widened in surprise as a spray of magic hit him, cold enough that it prickled uncomfortably at his skin like the painfully icy rain on a cold February day, and the binding collar snapped open soundlessly.

Harry would never be able to describe the overwhelming sensation that swamped him as the thin barrier that had covered him like a second skin, encapsulating his body like a plastic bag under vacuum, was soaked right back into the band of metal around his throat, drawing back inch by inch. It was as if his skin was suddenly able to breathe again after being covered by sticky tar for hours, as if a terrible weight that had smothered him, pressing down on every square centimetre of his body, had been torn off of him, as if he had been drowning and had been rescued, picked out of the water to find himself surrounded by light, fresh air, soaring, floating…

Free!

Free like a basilisk that had been caged for centuries to now be released on unsuspecting victims and rip them apart, those who deserved it!

Within Harry, the clouds of magic, the volatile and impermanent mists and sparks that had a tendency to solidify into streams and swirls only sporadically, condensed at once without warning to form sharp, gleaming needles that were pulled faster and faster towards his centre like stars that came too close to a black hole. Harry gasped, sensing the tension, the maleficent intent and excitement that was his own, partly at least, but unchecked – unhindered – by mercy, by understanding and morals. Like an implosion his magic drew together all at once but it wouldn't stop, he could see it clearly: with the incredible acceleration of speed with which his magic was rushing towards its invisible centre, it would pass it and fly in the opposite direction, unleashing its ferocious fury on whatever stood in its way.

No… no-no-no-No-NO!

Harry's arms flew out to encompass his chest as if he could hold in the powerful force, because it would slaughter Taide as well, and it was wrong and it would not reach the man holding Hermione and Ron captive, leaving them at the mercy of someone who had been ordered to kill them if anything went awry.

It all happened in the blink of an eye and it was simply not enough time to stop it entirely, but Harry set himself against the flood with single-minded, desperate determination, gathering as much of his magic as he could to redirect most of the attack, pushing the pulsing streams into a tight coil that lead back to himself, into a frighteningly energetic maelstrom of magic that raged within his chest, making his heart jump and race, his lungs drawing air until they were close to bursting.

The excess – still more than any wizard should possess – exploded out of Harry, pushing away Taide's wings and throwing him to the ground and out of harm's way before racing over the courtyard like a shockwave, seizing dust and leaves and blowing it into his captor's faces. Stones rolled over the pathways with a loud clatter and branches and thinner trees and bushes creaked and cracked as they snapped and were defoliated in the darkness.

But wherever it happened upon living flesh, it gathered together into a concentrated, powerful attack, delivering hard, spiteful punches and sharp stabs so that pained and shocked outcries conquered the general clamour. Hastily whipped up magical shields lasted for mere seconds before being perforated entirely, leaving their casters at the non-existent mercy of the very force they had tried to bind. More than one of his captors were swept off their feet as if they weighted nothing, those who barely managed to keep their footing, were forced back several steps, struggling against the unnatural wind and trying as best as they could to protect their faces.

It were images that burned themselves into Harry's mind, glorious, terrible images of chaos and destruction that he had caused, that was deserved and yet not justifiable. Heady and appalling. Applauded and condemned by equally strong parts of his being, the realisation of how rogue he could be driven to be felt like a ball-lightning in is chest.

There was Ricarda lying on the ground with her pale arms held protectively above her head as scarlet blossomed around small slashes in her fair dress. Like poppies so red and beautiful, and she twitched and turned but couldn't escape the razors of pale blue-white light that danced around her.

Only metres away her daughter skidded over the rough pathway, pushed further and further viciously while the abrasion first ate at her clothing and then her skin. Desperately her husband tried to reach the screaming woman as she passed him, having managed to hold onto one of the thicker trees, but at the critical moment, when their hands were about to touch, Harry's magic sharpened into invisible knives around them with vindictive glee, cleaving open the skin on the back of their hands and she was pulled into the darkness kicking and crying and screaming.

Meanwhile Eleuterio was cajoled into the waiting, thorny arms of a now naked rose bush, his wand falling from his bleeding fingers as he was punched and pushed and forcefully entangled within the spikey boughs.

The other man, the Lanai's friend that Harry couldn't even remember the name of, had caught himself after rolling a few meters, trying again and again to keep the Protego shields stable around him, only to fail and be battered down by Harry's revengeful magic as if it pleased it to see him strive desperately against the forces raging around him and watching him lose.

How it blazed with unholy satisfaction within him, humming and swirling boldly in his ribcage. It burned his horror away and whispered to Harry of the necessity of making an example, showing the world that this was the deserved prize for messing with a submissive like him, for it had obviously forgotten. And the rampage now was only the beginning, he would paint this garden blood red and plant a seed of fear so strong that no one would ever dare to hurt him or his loved ones ever again! This, this was his canvas, waiting to be covered with the symbols of his rage and power.

If he would only allow his magic free reign – artistic liberties – if he'd only unleash its fury unbridled… It would be the easiest and most effective way, wouldn't it? To just destroy his kidnappers and torturers, these criminals, who deserved nothing else anyway… and be safe.

For a terrible moment that he would hate himself later for, Harry was enchanted by that possibility, but it was something that he had been yearning for so desperately for such a long time, who could anyone fault him for wanting it, whatever the cost: sweet and peaceful and everlasting safety?

To that end he whipped his head left and right with a furiously beating heart, searching for the main culprit, his main target, but Valerio wasn't to be detected anywhere in the wreckage that had once been a doubtlessly beautiful garden. Where he had stood close to the two-way-mirror – the one exception to the circle of destruction Harry had drawn around him – was no one but the old wizard who was fighting with desperation and failing strength against the magical storm that the young, cornered submissive had whipped up. It was a futile endeavour from the start and suddenly what little weight the elderly wizard had to help him breast the furious wind was not enough anymore and he was thrown down with the terrible force of Harry's magic. The old, wrinkled eyes widened in fear as he fell for two endless seconds with a rough shout, before impacting hard with the ground haplessly so that his head hit the cobbled terrace.

His frail body slithered over the stones and came to lie in a heap in front of the veiled mirror, the fierce wind still tearing at his clothes and white hair and the equally white curtain behind him.

The sight was like breaking through the cracking ice sheet of a frozen lake, submerging into the painfully cold water and suddenly every thought of revenge was drowned along with Harry, the influence of his magic softening and dissolving until it was like the ominous, energetic potential in the air shortly before a thunder storm, leaving the young submissive behind to stare in speechless consternation at the havoc he had wreaked. And at that violently fluttering, eerily white cloth.

Behind this very curtain his best friends – the heart and soul of his very existence – were still at the hands of their tormentor, possibly awaiting their execution or, god forbid, already dead because he, Harry, was too busy taking revenge and committing murder to follow a simple one-sentence plan! Worse, without even a sparkle of remorse in his chest.

It was chilling and sickening, wrong and unnatural… and some part of him, half-buried and smothered under the humming of his magic knew that this was not who he was, not who he wanted to be, not who he needed to be for Ron and Hermione's sake.

And that part realised with nauseating certainty that the time was running short as well: the destructive storm was already toning down, the cacophony of wind and magic and screams was gradually dying away while the tempest of dust and leaves dissolved, the particles fluttering to the ground like dancing ghosts.

If he wanted to save Hermione and Ron, and himself, then it was now or never.

Snarling with angry, anxious determination, Harry turned around quickly, his green eyes flitting to Taide who lay helplessly on the ground, both of the enormous, dark silver wings splayed out to either sides. It would take effort for him to rise from that position, that much was obvious, he couldn't even use his arms to brace himself, with the heavy feathery appendages in the way; only his head was cocked, aghast eyes set on the still form of his grandfather.

Harry shook himself, letting his emotions freeze over as best as he could; it wasn't even the slightest bit difficult. Battles he understood. Fighting he understood. Duels with madmen preceded by useless talking that everyone pretended to be negotiations or attempts at intimidation that were bound to fall onto deaf ears, but which everyone knew to be stalling.

It didn't take a genius to recognize that this was the wrong time for hesitancy or guilt, the wrong time for compassion. Already his captors were picking themselves up, some searching for their wands; Harry could hear groans and healing charms being cast…

He needed to have his hostage now! And he needed it to look real.

Quickly Harry buried his hand in the grass to his sides, his lengthening claws sinking deeply into the soft ground. Then, with a sudden jerk he ripped them out again, taking the green blades and a good deal of soil and roots with him, and threw it directly at Taide's face.

The man whipped his arms up to protect himself but not quickly enough. Dirt and small stones and grass hit him directly in the face and he spluttered, throwing his head to the side and clenching his eyes shut, even as his hands moved to rub them clean again, leaving him helpless and unable to react.

Exploiting that defencelessness, the young Gryffindor jumped up nimbly, throwing himself onto his liberator, straddling his waist, his knees ramming painfully into the downy feathers, fragile bones and strong muscles with bruising force, making the man groan out and convulse in pain. Harry almost cringed – he hadn't wanted to hurt him – but he didn't allow himself to be distracted and before Taide had even managed to get the dirt out of his eyes, Harry had his deadly talons at his throat, gleaming with cold sharpness and sizzling poison in the dark night, threatening the fragile skin that moved with each swallow, each too fast heartbeat.

"Lie still!" Harry hissed half ordering, half begging, hoping for the older man to somehow forgive him his roughness and play along. He knew that it was all too likely that his one and only ally thought he would kill them all, what with the shattered remains of the garden surrounding them, Taide's family injured and scattered, especially his grandfather who might very well be dead; and if the older Vykélari decided to resist him…

But Taide only went completely stiff and still beneath him, his narrow lips drawn into a tight line and his eyes clenched shut against the dirt on his face, his expression distorted into a pained grimace.  
"Just lie still." Harry repeated, and this time it was less of an order and more of a plea.

His talons gleamed against the paler skin of Taide's throat, dark grey and deadly. Flexing them to almost scratch the vulnerable flesh, Harry suddenly wondered whether he was capable of forcing them to sink in and tear and rip. The image flashed before his eyes, his mouth going dry.  
He really didn't know. Never had he truly harmed an innocent. Never… but he'd never had to weigh up his friends' lives against that of an innocent bystander either.

Preying it wouldn't come to that, and mindful of the sensitive wings Harry lightened his own weight to reduce the hurtful pressure of his knees on the fragile appendages; and he reached out, letting a small wave of liquid magic wash over the other's skin, fresh and clean, taking away the harsh soil with a gentle caress. It was as much a peace offering as an inquiry: Harry needed to know whether this was turning into an actually real hostage situation, whether he needed to prepare for Taide to fight him as well.

Slowly, carefully the dominant's agate eyes blinked open and Harry unwillingly held his breath, only for his stomach to drop as he caught sight of the stony coldness and wariness within. He swallowed the bitter disappointment that wanted to rise in his throat, his chest tightening as if a giant screw clamp was about to shatter his sternum.

Here he was, with the only person willing to help him save his friends and Harry had managed to turn the man against him in little over a minute!

It didn't matter, though, not really. Harry wouldn't allow it to matter!

Determinedly, Harry took a deep breath, before shouting "Valerio!", never taking his eyes away from the green, brown, and golden ones beneath him, his voice hard and unforgiving and confident, even though his heart felt as if it wanted to hammer its way out of his body through his throat.

Taide grew even stiller beneath him, swallowing drily. There was a certainty in the harsh lines of his angular face, in the cold agate of his eyes and Harry absently wondered what it was, even while he let his expression draw into a grimace of hate and anger and he called out again. "VALERIO!"

His voice carried far further than it should have, as if he had cast an amplifying charm. "COME OUT!" It echoed through the garden, rough and wild like the roar of a big cat, and Valerio's impassive answer, when it finally came, was a stark contrast. A cooling charm on a burn wound.

"I am here."

Harry felt his heart skip a beat, the well-known anticipation of facing off with an enemy pooling in his stomach and laying itself like an armour around him. Careful to not loosen his hold on Taide, or show those fiends any weakness, Harry turned to look over his shoulder, his gaze searching the lean, hawk-faced man who stepped forth from behind the looming shadow of the two-way mirror. Valerio Lanai, tall and upright with pride and malice and confidence even now; and worst of all: unscathed, his clothes still tidy and pristine. Of course the sneaky bastard had hidden away safely while Harry was smashing everything and everyone else.

It was not difficult to muster the disgust and rage to fuel his determination, and Harry snarled at the man, his claws curling threateningly against Taide's throat. "Let my friends go, Valerio, and I won't have to butcher your son!"

Valerio craned his neck, glancing down at the still body of his uncle, his lips distorting into something ugly for a moment or two. Then he clicked his tongue in displeasure, raising his intent gaze to Harry's, full of unyielding determination.  
"Are you certain that you want to play this game with me, Harry?"

If he hadn't been prepared for it to happen, Harry knew he would have cringed or frozen for a possibly fatal second when with a sudden flick of his wand, Valerio let the heavy, white curtain flutter to the ground, burying the old wizard's fallen body in a heap of cloth and folds and opening the plane's inner abdomen to the night, the place that had become his friends' torture chamber.  
The horror of the scene had deepened and sharpened, tearing into Harry with invisible teeth and claws. No longer were his friends cowering on the dark carpet, and no longer was that obscure unknown third party hidden away from the visual range of the two-way mirror.

Instead, the vulture like man stood behind the strung out bodies of Ron and Hermione with his head held high, a cruel smirk tugging at his thin lips. His eyes that were half hidden behind a curtain of long, dark hair, gleamed as they beheld the sight of Harry's friends with malicious glee, his friends that were pressed flat against the mirror, their hands tied behind them. With barely half a metre between their bodies, they were forced to look at each other, their cheeks pressed closely to the glass of the mirror, distorting their expressions grotesquely. But it didn't take away from the look of desperation, fear and pain that seemed to have been permanently burned into the faces that he knew so well, like the brand mark of a nightmare.  
For a moment Harry almost, almost lost his composure, horror and nausea and pain taking over his thinking, making his heart stutter and race and his breathing catch because those two pair of beloved eyes did not even fucking blink or move at all!

But then he saw it: clouds of moisture condensing on the glass as their breath fogged up the mirror between them, mingling and meeting in the middle, just as their gazes did as they were forced to witness the fate, the struggling and torture of the other, the love of their life. And wasn't that a whole new level of sick?

At that moment, ruthlessly exploiting Harry's distraction, a beam of red light shot towards his bent back and if he hadn't partly expected such a guileful move, it might have successfully hit and incapacitated him. But Harry's antsy and restless magic felt the fast approaching spell like a shark's ampullae of Lorenzini would sense the electrical fields around a prey's body, or a bird of passage sensed magnetic currents. His skin crawled ominously and his hackles rose; without wasting a single thought, Harry whipped up a bright blue protection shield that effortlessly absorbed the stunner.

Shocked silence reigned in the garden for a few, endless seconds while the powerful currents within Harry rose in defence of their owner, flaring and blazing, a fiery tornado birthed from a firestorm raging out of control, frightening and deadly. The fury streaming through his body felt like its own living entity within him, detached from his logic and his mind, but not less real for it, not less powerful and it was all he could do to keep it contained, to not let his magic rip out of his chest.

His fingers trembled from the strain and the intensity of the feeling, the fear of losing control, causing him to nick the fragile skin on Taide's throat and making the man tense beneath him, a barely contained gasp escaping his lips. Immediately Harry recoiled his fingers an inch or two, guilt, anger, regret, fear and consternation tugging at his head until he could feel the pressure behind his temples. With his free hand he squeezed Taide's shoulder as much as a reminder to stay still and quiet as in apology – even if the gesture was lost on his hostage.

He needed to get this over with sooner rather than later… or else Harry couldn't guarantee that he'd be able to keep his magic back.

Quickly, he threw an intense glare at his attacker, taking in Ricarda's fragile form standing in front of him with her wand raised at his chest, pale and wide-eyed with a mother's fear and splattered with her own blood. He snarled at her ferociously, unfazed by her pitiful appearance.  
"Do not try that again, if you want him to live!"

She didn't move, a frozen, blood-splattered statue in front of ravaged and torn bushes and so Harry strained to look over his shoulder again, letting the feathers in his hair sharpen and lengthen to form an emerald crown on top of coal black strands, his vibrant green markings bleeding out of his skin, making his eyes glow in the darkness.

Valerio raised a critical eyebrow but Harry didn't care whether his captors thought it improper, it was a threat and it made him feel taller, bolder, more powerful. And using his magic so visibly as a form of intimidation helped to settle its raging fury at least somewhat, enough to focus.  
"If you hurt them, I'll drive my claws into his throat," he snarled, "see how potent that poison really is. And I'd still have all of you as hostages."

Valerio pursed his lips derisively, his long fingers twisting at his side. "Brave words for someone with the reputation of trying everything to not damage his enemies permanently."

Harry glared venomously. This wouldn't be the first time that his penchant for sparing his opponents would come back to bite him, and Harry had to give this devil his due, he had done his homework. But what Valerio and many of his enemies failed to understand was that the Battle of Hogwarts had changed him, had made him realise that there were situations where a swift kill could save lives. All those deaths of children that might have been prevented if he – or others – had fought with more determination, had used more offensive than defensive spells… no, Harry had learned from his mistakes and though he would do everything to keep Taide alive, he would do even more to save Ron and Hermione. Add to that the fact that his friends had been tortured in front of his eyes, and Harry wasn't quite so sure whether mercy was still an option.  
"My past enemies have rarely had the opportunity to torture my friends and those who did are all dead now. Don't underestimate me, Valerio!"

The man huffed once in what might have been disbelief but he sobered up rather quickly, maybe too quickly. Up to now Valerio had taunted and humiliated him and treated him like a brainless child that he expected to obey and submit to each of his whims…  
Now he straightened his posture, his eyes flitting around over the chaos in the courtyard, dwelling a moment on each of his family members who were starting to drag themselves out and towards the centre of the garden, and with it Harry and Valerio and that damnable mirror. Grave and wary the head of the Lanai family looked as he contemplated the young submissive and it made Harry nervous, made his hackles rise. Something was off, something was not… adding up and he couldn't stop his heartbeat from racing, his eyes from trying to keep every one of these bastards in his sight. Not that that was possible.

Finally Valerio spoke, his voice urgent and almost beseeching, like a negotiator trying to reason with a kidnapper (and by god, Harry thought a bit hysterically, that was exactly what he had become, wasn't it?), like an animal trainer taming a wild, skittish horse.  
"No matter what you do, it won't change the fact that you have to mate, and soon."  
Valerio spread his arms as if to encompass the entirety of the destruction Harry had caused. "Look around you, submissive! Look what you have done! You can't control your magic without a mate. You have to mate! Why not Taide?"

Disbelieving and outraged, Harry snorted.  
"Fuck you, Valerio! Everything would be better than mating one of your wretched family! Now release my friends!"

With a quiet, disparaging smirk, the older man leaned forward conspiratorially.  
"And which family would you rather be mated into? Malfoy? Zabini?"

Harry trembled with anger and he couldn't even regret it. How dare he? How dare that man, who had had his best friends kidnapped and tortured, who had blackmailed Harry and belittled him, trying to force him to mate his son… how could that man stand there and think that he could be on the same level as Draco or Blaise?  
"They are better than the Lanais by far!" He sneered with utter conviction.

At that, Valerio huffed in sharp, acid amusement. "So you think yourself in love with them?" He mocked, a quiet laugh erupting from his thin lips. It looked stilted, calculated and so very out of place. "You do, don't you? Oh you poor thing. Driven by your own magic and mating instincts and you don't even know it."

"Shut up!" Harry snarled. He didn't want to hear the foul lies, he only wanted his friends free! Only wanted to return to Lanai, no Zabini manor, back to Blaise and Draco; he was safe with them and he liked them. He liked them! Who the hell was Valerio to tell him otherwise?

But the man wasn't finished by far and he kept on ranting, gibing. "Do you think they love you? Well, let me tell you this: love is a capricious feeling, and easily manipulated by magic. The affection you feel is only an illusion," he spat, his voice full of cold anger, "and it will fade as soon as you find a worthier mate. They have snared you."

Harry turned half away, the accusations and horrible claims leaving him more shaken than he wanted to admit, because he had feared the same thing only two days ago, after Blaise had dazzled him with that colourful display of his magical prowess. Hadn't his own magic whispered to him of all the numerous virtues of the two dominants who had lead him through his inheritance? It had appealed to him to submit to them, had made them seem more honourable than they perhaps were…

And Harry had… Harry had grown to like them.

It made him want to scream and weep and rave and deny it all. His magic was seething, wriggling within his stomach like a ball of hissing, agitated snakes that wanted to strike!

"How long have you been my nephew's guest? Four days? Do you really think that is a sufficient amount of time to fall in love? Especially with those two?" Valerio asked, confident and smug. "You and that Malfoy boy fought on different sides of a war two months ago; given the opportunity he would have killed you. And all the while my nephew hid in some hole like the cowardly fool that he is!"

The denial ripped out of Harry before he even had thought it through, regardless of knowing that the accusations were not baseless.  
"Don't speak abou…"

Valerio whipped one arm up as if to declare Harry a hopeless case of idiocy.  
"Look at you:" he scoffed, "so protective of someone so undeserving! Almost unable to mate another, because your magic is already so used to theirs. And why? Because they helped you through your inheritance when you were at your weakest! Like a hatchling imprinting on the first thing it sees… "

"STOP IT!" Harry shouted, unable to take more, unsure what was true and what was not, but uncaring all the same. Whether or not he had feelings for Draco and Blaise, whether or not they were true, it didn't change the fact that he wouldn't allow himself to become a pawn of this man, to be used and exploited as he saw fit. It didn't change the fact that his friends were still in danger.

Still his voice, his entire being shivered with upset as he addressed Valerio, his entire attention focused on the man.  
"It is none of your damn business. Now let my friends go or I swear I'll kill him and if you think I won't do it, think again! He wouldn't be the first man I killed."

Had Harry not been so upset and unsettled, had his magic not clouded his mind with anger and the almost unbearable urge to attack, he might have noticed how Valerio's attention shifted for a short moment to a spot behind Harry, exchanging a meaningful glance with someone there, how the man gripped his wand tighter and subtly changed his stance as if readying himself for an attack.

But Harry remained oblivious of the threat. A fatal mistake.

"Harry." Valerio said, trying for calming and soothing but ending up patronizing. "I cannot let them – and you – leave now, and have you run to the guardia. I won't see my family thrown into prison."

Suddenly his expression became harsh and grim, transforming into a cruel mask of violence and determination and he flicked his wand, which spew out red glowing sparks like the spray of blood that followed a bullet to the head.

And behind him the vulture like man in the mirror swung his wand-arm back as if he were cracking a whip, a maniacal, gleeful grin on his face; Harry could see him aim and his entire being just stopped for that one horrible second. As the crimson light sprung forth from the tip of that thin wood, Harry jumped up mindlessly, abandoning his hostage and running, rushing desperately towards the mirror, his magic breaking from his chest dashing against the shiny surface, reaching for it, trying to follow the mirror's magic along the connection to its counterpart.

But he couldn't, he couldn't and when he was still metres away, the red light circled the pale, smooth column of Ron's throat, dotted with freckles, and it squeezed! It cut into flesh and sinews and through arteries. Spurts of blood, equally as red and gleaming as the curse, splattered against the mirror and Hermione's chest, pumped out of the large incision by each beat of Ron's yet strong heart.

Harry opened his mouth to scream, wordless, mindless, desperate, horrified screams full of agony but nothing came out and suddenly the world tilted and Harry fell, barely catching himself on all fours, scraping his knees and the balls of his hands. Only then did the pain register, searing and blinding and bright and he looked down his chest and stomach, not surprised to see the gleaming tip of a dagger protruding from his lower abdomen, smeared and dropping with crimson.

Gasping, Harry fell to his side, groaning at the sudden pain as he hit the ground. He could sense his magic draw close around him, feeling it condense around the wound, a warm and pulsing and fluid thing that tried valiantly to push out the sharp blade and close the deep cut.  
But the streams of sparkles were pulled closer to the metal with growing strength and speed and they were absorbed without taking effect, sucked right into the cursed thing. Harry didn't understand it at first, his thoughts too raw and hurt, too agitated… and it didn't seem as important as the sight that hit him if he twisted his head just so: there was Ron, his Ron and Harry could see the way he gurgled and gasped for breath that he couldn't draw – his killer must have cancelled the magical paralysis to delight in his victim's agony – and he could see him cough and spit and try to get rid of all the blood that was running into his lung, could see him twitch and writhe in pain and fear and he was dying! He was dying and Harry could only watch! Could only watch until those watery blue eyes finally stopped their mad dance, and his so familiar features went lax.

Harry wailed and screamed, convulsing around the dagger deeply imbedded in him, feeling his magic trickle softly into the cold metal, but the physical pain and loss were insignificant, paling in comparison to the other loss he was experiencing at this very moment and he couldn't care less that he was haemorrhaging, both blood and magic streaming out of his body.

Ron's corpse fell to the ground, collapsing into a heap of long limps as his killer released him from his levitation spell, like a puppet that had its strings cut. Harry stared and stared helplessly, his vision swimming from the upwelling tears, and he couldn't breathe from the sudden feeling of emptiness within him, the smothering, crushing weight of grief and loss and anger. His chest was so tight, his ribcage and his lungs started to ache, the hurtful sensation mingling with the agony in his stomach and heart.

He couldn't breathe!

Seven years, seven years of battling trolls and monsters together and Death Eaters and Dark Lords, of surviving against all odds only to be cut down and slaughtered like a pig!

The pain and rage consumed him and he didn't even notice the dark presence at his side until strong, bony fingers grasped his chin in a vice-like grip, forcing him to tear his gaze away from the gruesome sight of his best friend's bloody form and towards the pale oval of Valerio's expressionless face. Ron's murderer.

"Don't try to use your magic, sottomesso, or you will be drained." The man advised gravely, voice hard, before tiling his head sideways and calling out "Find me that collar!"

Desolately, Harry shook his head out of the other's firm grip, desperation taking over as he heard scurrying feet rushing to do the man's bidding. Ron was dead and Hermione would soon join that fate and he'd be collared again. For what?  
For the sick pleasure and greed of a madman who wanted to enslave him. Tears of rage and grief clouded his eyes and overflowed, pouring down his cheeks and dropping to wet the tiles beneath his head. No, Harry couldn't live like this…

Desperately he tried to raise his magic, tried to concentrate the clouds of sparks within his body into streams that he could grip and wield but as soon as he did, they were sucked away from his control, sucked into the vortex that was forming around the blade, a maelstrom that ripped everything away, his blood, his magic, his consciousness, leaving only white-hot agony and a bone-deep weariness. His limps were heavy and numb and too cold.

"Put it on him and kill the girl." Valerio ordered quietly, so damn quietly and Harry didn't know whether to scream or sob.

Weakly he craned his neck, catching a glimpse of Hermione's still immobilized form, seeing silent tears fall from her dark eyes, her breath clouding the mirror in quick, uneven gasps. Sweet, noble-hearted Hermione who had had to witness her love die, who was about to be butchered herself, the man behind her already raising his wand…

Rage and hate flooded Harry, swamping his body, leaving enough room only for a single realisation, a single desire, a single vision.

They would die here! They would all die here and there was nothing he could do to change that anymore.

The only thing left for him to decide or affect was how he wanted to go down and by god, he couldn't allow these murderers to get away with all that they had done! He'd avenge his friends, if it was the last thing he would do!

He'd kill these bastards for all they had done, he'd tear into them with savage hate, cut off their limps inch by inch and rip their stomachs open and cook them in their own blood with the pure force of his magic!

With unconquerable determination, Harry ripped at his magic, tore at it with mindless abandon and with a sudden lurch he overcame the pull of the cursed dagger. Forcefully, he pushed it all out of his body, not bothering to keep any for himself. He reared up as he convulsed, the feeling of loss, of magical exhaustion hitting him more fiercely than even during his inheritance.

A heavy coldness seeped into his flesh, his fingers and toes, crawling up his limps and into his torso, leaving only deadness behind. Finally it was too much and Harry vomited violently, black shadows pouring from his mouth: his magic, permeated with hate and ruthlessness, driven by the overwhelming need for revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm… yeah. No lynching the author, okay, not till she had the chance to save the day, alright? In any case: I didn’t warn for major character death. And I didn’t do so for a reason.
> 
> So, I really hope you liked the chapter (I think ‘enjoy’ is probably the wrong word, considering all the blood and gore and violence), and I really look forward to your opinions!


	28. A Storm of Death and Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I know it’s been practically forever. But I’ve finished university now!!! My master thesis took a lot of time, so I hope you can forgive me. I hope it’s going to become better from now on but it is difficult. I’m a computer scientist and somehow my friends and family take offence if I sit in front of my Laptop during my free time.
> 
> My unofficial beta, RighteousHate, mentioned it recently, and she is totally right: I do have the most patient readership of all: no flames, no pressure, you guys just wait patiently for months, I feel so coddled… you are really great and it’s a pleasure writing for you!
> 
> That’s why I’m also totally sorry for not answering reviews this last chapter, I appreciated each and every one of them! Thank you all so much for the support and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy Night Flight to its end.
> 
> Now here is the last, really dark chapter before it gets a bit lighter again. So be warned:
> 
> WARNING: graphic descriptions of violence, blood and gore and minor character deaths!
> 
> This was not an easy chapter to write, and I guess it won’t be easy to read, so proceed at your own discretion.
> 
> As always, the summary of the last chapter is in the “What Happened So Far” Chapter, so have a look there first if you feel you need a refresher after all these months.  
> 

Taide felt the acrid taste of bile rise in his throat and still he couldn’t look away from where that gruesome vision of blood and death and desperation transformed into a spectacle of terrible beauty, unable to flee or help or do something other than stare helplessly, frozen with the same fascinated horror with which one might behold a volcanic eruption even while the pyroclastic flow raced closer like death personified.

It wasn’t as if fleeing was an option anymore. Even if Taide had known where his wand was, the wards prevented apparition and the wrath of a submissive was said to be faster than lightning and deadlier than dragon fire.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known it would happen either. He had been so horribly certain of it.

When Taide had released the submissive from the magical block that had contained his powers only for the boy to lay waste to what had been a beautiful courtyard and his mother’s pride; when his grandfather was thrashed to the ground and screamed out his last breath in fear and terror; when the boy crouched over him, shocked and aghast at his own brutality and trembling with the turmoil of his emotions and the effort it took to hold his magic beneath the frail barrier of his skin… that was when Taide had known that he was looking at his own death.

The boy was Pandora’s box. And Taide had opened it and released something he had no hope of ruling in or escaping from.

Perhaps if he had warned his family and called out to them, there might have still been time to finish the submissive off during that one fleeting moment when the boy was still teetering on the edge of a magical frenzy. Almost he had done it, wanting more than anything to survive this hellish night, wishing for the sister to live whose daughters he adored, the uncle that had taught him pugna aerea and helped him steal torrone without getting caught, the mother that had reminded him to be strong and not to cry when he hurt but who had sung him through the frightening heights of thunderstorms nonetheless.

Perhaps they might have lived, if only…

But at that crucial moment something had paralyzed his vocal cords, even though Taide had known that he was the only one who could still save them.  
Because they themselves were oblivious to the massacre about to happen, didn’t recognize the signs because they hadn’t played with the idea of freeing the submissive’s magic, hadn’t researched what might happen as a result. Taide knew that they were blissfully unaware because no one was running, no one was even trying to kill the source of their demise in the one second when that might have been a fading possibility… Valerio even hushed the submissive with deceptive gentleness but the boy didn’t seem to notice him anymore.

Even then Taide hadn’t said anything at all, watching the drama unfold passively, choked with regret over how badly he had handled his attempt at rescue, with grief for the submissive’s pain, the two friends he had lost… and for the family that was dear to him, that he loved despite and with their errors.  
Yet for all that he loved them, Taide still couldn’t break his silence that was so deeply rooted in the understanding that they deserved everything that Harry’s magic had in store for them. All of them.

They had objectified a great young man as a powerful tool, marginalized him in the worst way possible. The consequences of their actions were equally real as they were tragic and the horrifying sense of rightness suffusing this screwed kind of justice burned hotly through his throat.

And now it was just too late either way: the sickly pale body shuddered in painful convulsions, heaving and retching. A flood of utterly black shadows poured from his mouth in wild, swirling billows, spilling onto the tiles of the patio and into a heaving, surging puddle that spread and stretched, crawling along the cracks between the stones like a living thing.

Valerio started back from the shadowy, formless mass as if it was a hissing cobra about to attack, finally, finally realising what his son had known for endless minutes now and the sudden fear robbed him of his usual grace as he scrambled to his feet. He raised his wand with unsteady fingers, a frantic “Avada…“ already tumbling from his narrow, bloodless lips…

Too late, Taide thought with grief and horror, tears burning in his eyes; it was endless minutes, perhaps hours too late and now he’d have to watch his father die a violent death. There was nothing, nothing at all that might save him now.  
Harry’s magic whipped forth with sharp anger, just a tiny, invisible tendril of pure power extending from all that flowing blackness, but Taide could feel it nonetheless as its force rippled the very air and natural magical currents around it, and it made his skin crawl. With precision and furious determination it attacked, flashing brightly for a short moment right above Valerio’s far too slowly moving form, a thin curve of light like the gleaming of a knife, like lightning in the nocturnal air. Then it vanished from sight again and Taide felt as if the short moment of sudden silence and the absence of any clue to its whereabouts or doings was more frightful than anything it could have done.

That was until it just wasn’t gone any longer. Until it was there at Valerio’s wrist like a sharp knife, like burning iron, cauterizing the ugly stump left behind where the wizard’s wand hand had been. With a dull thud the severed limp hit the ground, the thin wand still clutched tightly in the grasp of its dying fingers.

For the blink of an eye it was as if the entire courtyard had fallen into a limbo of shock and silence, the situation too unreal for any of the Lanais to grasp; too quick a change from the sure victory of a few seconds ago to allow them any sort of reaction. As if under a spell they stood and gaped, faint and numb and paralyzed, staring at Valerio’s wavering form as he clutched at the stump of his hand.

Valerio faltered and fell and suddenly a scream ripped through the air, a horrifying sound of such volume and pitch that the clangourous shrillness pierced the chests of those assembled, hurt their ears and made them flinch violently. It hurled them into panicked, mindless action and those who were still able to – Ricarda and Eleuterio and his father’s friend Ignazio – rushed and ran and stumbled towards the gates. Taide could see his brother-in-law Marco trying to help up Alessa, but his sister was so badly hurt already and there was no sign of his uncle Umberto anywhere…  
The attempt at escape was for naught of course, and the knowledge filled Taide with equal parts of despair and resignation; it was pointless and futile: the courtyard was too large, the gates too far, and while his family – by Medea, his _mother_ – were desperately trying to reach them, only Taide remained to witness Harry’s magic taking form. He and his father, who lay on the ground as if paralyzed, cradling the stump of his wand-arm, staring with wide but empty eyes at that puddle of poisoned blackness.

Then Valerio, too, scrambled up in a last effort to save his life.  
He did not look back at his son, or urge him to follow. And Taide didn’t even notice, too engrossed with the sight of the as of yet formless darkness that the British Vykélari had heaved up like something vicious that his body couldn’t cope with.

Something moved within, denting the shadows upwards towards the sky. For a moment it looked like a long dead tree whose naked skeleton had been swallowed by a bog until only the sharp tips of broken branches remained afloat. But these branches shoved upwards towards the sky and the tips joined into thicker limps which joined again and again until only two of them remained, two smooth boughs that were perfect mirrors of one another, arching towards an invisible centre between them.

They were antlers, Taide realised, just as an enormous shadow stag reared its massive head, breaking through the darkly swirling surface. With a powerful leap it jumped onto the terrace, the tiles bursting beneath its hooves with a sound like thunder, magical discharges dancing over the muscular legs like little lightning bolts.

It was a frightening sight, this embodiment of Harry’s magic, perhaps his subconsciousness. Not because of the hide that was so dark that it seemed to swallow all the light that fell onto it, dripping with the shadowy substance that had birthed it; and not because of the sharp steely antlers crowning its proud head, or the deadly coldness of its white glowing eyes. No, the sleek form of a hunting nundu or a raging dragon should logically have held more horror than a stag – a flight animal, delicate and graceful – even a nightmarish one like this.

Yet hate and malicious rage and the unquenchable desire for revenge streamed from the darkly majestic beast in suffocating waves, soaking the very earth and air around it. There was hateful intelligence in the white of its glowing eyes and Taide couldn’t help but shudder and cringe under the force of all that ominous intent.  
It wanted to inflict pain, to torture and kill only slowly. And it knew how to.

Almost leisurely the enormous stag stretched its long neck forward and began to shake itself, working the graceful, lean muscles of its neck and shoulders and the long torso, slowly at first, then with ever more force until larger dollops and small drops of the black, viscous mass were flung everywhere.  
One especially large lump flew right at Taide and he cringed, raising one arm in reflex to protect himself. But it wasn’t necessary: before it could splash against his skin, wings sprouted from its magical core, delicate and raven black. Within the blink of an eye the shapeless thing grew and elongated and formed a broad tail of fanned out black feathers, long legs with vicious claws, and a hawk-like head that ended in a curved, deadly gleaming beak.

One beat of its powerful wings, and the downs on the underside ignited themselves, white and blue flames licking at the gleaming feathers without burning them. It flew as if carried by the fire, a herald of destruction and death.

Taide could feel his heart stop, expecting, _knowing_ that the thing was coming for him, would hack and claw him to pieces or burn him to a cinder. He buried his face into the crook of both his arms and turned away even though he knew protecting his head wouldn’t save him, might only prolong his vain fight for life and his pain. A moment later an unbearable heat was above his head like from a thousand suns and singed his hands and hair and then the demonic bird was past him, hunting for some other prey, no doubt. Hunting his family.

Scared stiff, Taide looked around with his eyes only, not daring to move his head. Hundreds of burning birds of all kinds and shapes circled above the courtyard, forming a tornado of fire and feathers, a bright torch that bathed the courtyard into an eerily flickering, bluish light, throwing long dancing shadows ahead of those who were fleeing as if taunting them with its unescapable presence, with the futility of their attempts.

The twister was strengthened by ever more beasts, while others broke from the formation, heading for houses and plants and foliage and humans, hacking and picking and burning. Swarms of them: Falcons and hawks and vultures and crows, and countless others.

They reached his precious sister first and her husband, who hadn’t been able to flee with Alessa’s back a single open abrasion and Taide could no longer stay silent.

“MARCO!” He screamed in warning and his brother-in-law whipped around. His face became lax with shock, his mouth falling open, eyes widening comically. The tall man must have realised that it was over, that it was too late. Taide saw him hesitate for a single, terribly short moment, before Marco turned, threw his arms around his wife and protectively covered her lean form with his much broader body as best as he could in a futile attempt to shield her.

When the demonic birds reached them, Taide felt his breathing catch, his lungs refusing to draw more air. Sharp claws ripped into Marco’s back, burning wings beat against his skin and the man cried out in white-hot agony, but only tightened his hold on his wife, whose own fearful screams filled the night. Unholy crows landed on his back and arms and any part of Alessa that they could reach, their sharp beaks tearing into unprotected flesh.

By Medea, they were hacking them to death!

Taide called his wings back into his body and jumped up, rushing towards the submissive without a thought, and he honestly didn’t know what he’d do when he reached the boy, he just wished to stop the carnage about to take place. This were his brother-in-law and sister! The brilliantly witty older sister that had always been as much of a nagging nuisance as a reassuring, supportive constant in his life.

Immediately the stag was in front of him, its antlers lowered threateningly against him. Taide could not stop in time, ran right into the sharp dagger-like tips. The force of the impact and the agonizing pain from multiple stab wounds all over his torso pushed all air from his lungs and he couldn’t even scream as he was thrown away like a puppet, crashing against the broken remains of a tree and the world darkened to a merciful black around him.

Taide wasn’t awake as the birds hacked Marco’s carotid open or when they disembowelled his sister. He did not see a swarm of them press Eleuterio into the ground and eat him alive.  
He was not conscious to witness a dozen falcons enveloping his mother in their burning wings and holding her screaming, struggling body until her blood was boiling like Harry had wished for in his own last moments of consciousness.

* * *

  
While the air at the Lanai country estate became pungent with the smell of burning flesh and biting smoke, Draco and Blaise rushed to that very place of destruction with desperate haste, driven by foreshadowing visions of what might await them if they couldn’t reach Harry in time, one more bloody and violent than the other.  
Thus, for once dependant on their servants, for once hand in hand with the diminutive Elves that were usually disregarded as nothing more than possessions, the two noble wizards were apparated to that manor somewhere in the south-eastern hillsides of Tuscany.

Blaise wasn’t even sure he knew the name of the young Elf taking him side-along, but its magic felt strange to him, wild and untamed as it encompassed him with a whirl of colours, much like a regular apparition, but even more dizzying and unsettling – though maybe that discomfort rooted in that disturbing feeling of utter helplessness crawling through him, nourished by his need to _be_ apparated in the first place… by Merlin, how he wished he could have apparated by himself, how he longed for his wand at his side!  
Instead Blaise was sucked along the magical tunnel with no means to influence the journey, his muscles tensing under the strain and his hands clenching around spindly, greyish fingers, holding on, because there was nothing else to do.

Gritting his teeth, Blaise waited for the uncomfortable travel to be over and wished it would never end. Because at the end of it there would be Harry, insane and dangerous according to Draco. Or worse: broken or even… dead.  
What if any of his family were still alive and in any shape to fight them? And what if the guardia didn’t come? What if they were actually on his family’s payroll like he had feared from the beginning? They’d be unable to defend themselves properly, might be overtaken…

Suddenly a powerful jolt went through the arm he held onto, a violent jolt that mercilessly whipped him around like a puppet, ripping the scrawny hand out of his grip. Blaise’s heart seemed to try its hardest to leave his ribcage through his throat as he desperately tried to grasp onto something, anything of the young House Elf that apparated him – if he got lost now, he might get splinted!

The Elf reacted quicker. Lean but surprisingly strong fingers clawed into his forearm, pulled him closer to the small body and now Blaise could feel the powerful force that had disrupted their journey press insistently against him and his guide. It encompassed him completely, too completely. With a sinking feeling Blaise realised that they weren’t the target, that something was pressing against the apparition tunnel itself, forcing it to distort around them. Suddenly the tunnel curved away from their original course, the change of direction making his stomach lurch sickeningly, and the magic that had carried them dissolved into nothingness.

Blaise barely had the time to prepare himself for a rough landing before the whirling colours deflagrated and gave way to an inky blackness. Momentarily blinded Blaise fell, his flailing limps breaking through small twigs, rough bark and rushing leaves. One of his hands managed to get hold of something that burst under the pressure into sticky wetness, before he impacted harshly with the dirt covered ground. He rolled uncontrolledly over sharp stones and hard roots that bore painfully into his flesh, scraped at his skin and robbed him of the breath to even cry out.

All around him bodies crashed into the foliage and dirt, shouts and high squeals of surprise and grunts of pain filling the air before being cut off by gruesome thuds, followed by a few seconds of loud cracking and rustling as his companions, too, came to a rolling stop.

Through the sharp pain of fresh bruises, scrapes and scratches, the horrible thought occurred to Blaise that one of them must have been Draco and he rolled around with a choked groan, panting and gasping as he squinted into the nocturnal darkness, holding a throbbing elbow.

“Draco?” He coughed out, unable to spot him amidst the mass of moving elven limbs and rustling plants – vine grapes, he noted absently, heavy with not quite ripe fruits which explained the squishy wetness still clutched in his hand. Blaise let go of it as if it had burned him.  
‘By Merlin, please don’t let him be hurt!’

A pain-filled moan answered him, followed by a tense “fuck!”, and Blaise felt something in his chest unclench marginally. Cursing was good. Really good. If his lover had the strength to curse, then he couldn’t be hurt too badly. And indeed a few moments later he could make out a distinctly human shadow amongst several small figures, arduously regaining their footing.  
None of them seemed to be truly injured – nothing the Elves couldn’t heal with a few charms anyway, which they had already started doing. Blaise released a breath that shivered as much from relief as from pain and anxiousness.

“Is everyone still here?” He asked, searching his loyal head Elf. “Alfar!”

There was the rustling of leaves to his left as the small servant tried to disentangle himself from the gnarled remains of the aged vine grape that he had crashed into. Almost immediately, the area around them was flooded with light and the Elf starting to count the other servants off.

Nodding once, Blaise turned, locking gazes with Draco. Scratches littered the pale face, fear was etched into the stormy grey of his eyes, but he was composed, steady, and Blaise’s own worried thoughts were mirrored in his grave expression.  
They had no idea where exactly they were. Something had ended their journey prematurely, forcefully, leaving them stranded in some vinery, rows of the gnarled plants extending into the darkness beyond the circle of light that the House Elves had conjured. And there was only one possible conclusion: the Lanais had warded their country estate against House Elf apparition.

The protection certainly hadn’t been in place the last time Blaise had been there with Draco at his side. His uncle must have installed it specifically for this occasion – no one guarded against House Elf magic, it would hinder the servants in their daily tasks and especially old and noble bloodlines depended on their Elves, couldn’t function without them.  
Blaise would know…

It was disastrous. Their entire plan depended on them finding Harry before the guardia had a chance to catch and arrest them for running away. Nobody would believe them if they didn’t present them with indisputable proof of Harry’s … his situation.  
They needed to leave, stay on the move, and do it quickly…

In front of him Draco licked his dry lips. “It can’t be far.”

That at least was true. Installing anti-apparition charms took time, especially if they were to be applied to a large area. Most likely the Lanais had warded only the villa itself and the gardens, causing any apparition tunnel to dissolve when it reached the barrier. They had to be close…

“Master!” Alfar piped up, “We are complete.”

Blaise nodded before squinting into the darkness, trying to make out some form of landmark but the magical elven light made them blind for anything beyond it. “Extinguish all the lights!”

Immediately his order was implemented, the night swallowing their assembly once more. For a few moments there was nothing but endless blackness that extended in all directions as if nothing else existed but them and the softly blowing wind that rustled through the vine. It was deceptively peaceful. But even before his eyes had the chance to adapt to the pale star light, Blaise noticed a flickering bluish column of light in the distance like a will-o’-the-wisp, right there at the very top of the vineyard.  
The fiery tube moved, bending and flexing like a graceful dancer, rising from a pedestal of flames …

The realisation of what the luminous apparition was, what it meant, hit Blaise like a sledgehammer: he knew the shape of these hills and what should be standing there, at the exact same position where that burning block lit up the night, a fiery socket over-towered by a tornado of pure fire…

Feeling faint suddenly, Blaise stumbled backwards. Harry was burning the manor down! With everything and everyone in it – himself included. He hadn’t thought that their Gryffindor would ever do something like this, _could_ do something so unrestrained, self-destructive and ruthless…

“Draco!” He whispered, raising one arm towards that torch, but his lover had already seen it, if the wide eyes and spooked expression were anything to go by.

“Damn it Blaise! We need to fly up there!” He breathed urgently before hurriedly waving for Giallina, Harry’s Elf, to approach, raising her into his arms and spreading his white golden wings.

For a moment Blaise hesitated, looking around waiting for those popping sounds of apparition to herald the arrival of the guardia. Why weren’t they here yet? Where were those bloody useless morons the one time you needed them?

His gaze flitted to his lover’s pale form vanishing into the darkness. By Merlin – they truly were on their own now, up against a whole family of dark, well-trained wizards and a possibly crazed submissive on a killing spree induced by a magical frenzy. Blaise swallowed around the lump in his throat, then he gathered the torn shreds of his determination, trying to hastily glue them back together. This was not the time to panic.

“Alfar!” he looked towards the devoted Elf standing beside him, awaiting his orders. ”You come with me. The rest of you follow us as quickly as you can!”

* * *

  
There were no warm winds to lift them, no thermals to soar on. Instead, a strong crosswind pressed against their side and the strain of the flight was burning through Blaise’s and Draco’s wing muscles like acid. Perforce they flew close to the ground, Draco quite a bit ahead, following the endless rows of vine towards the beacon that Harry had lit. A beacon that more and more took the form of a madly whirling flock of firebirds, beautiful and terrible to look at as their fiery tails and feathers fused almost seamlessly into that bright column of light that they had seen from afar.

Some as small as sparrows and others as large as pelicans, the varied mass of creatures was eerily quiet as they circled over the manor like malevolent spirits. Neither Blaise’s nor Draco’s sensible ears could make out any kind of noise aside from the still distant crackling of fire; and the unnatural silence was more gruesome, more fundamentally wrong and disturbing than any cacophony of rustling wings and shrill murderous bird cries could have been…

If only there had been any sign of life, even screams or crying, or voices calling out for help …

What if they were too late? What if these birds were nothing more than the requiem for a broken existence, ghosts of a nightmare holding silent vigil at Harry’s tomb?

The sense of foreboding drove them onwards, faster and ever faster towards the burning ruins that illuminated the night so brightly that the outlines were seared into Draco’s and Blaise’s eyes. Now a mere two hundred metres separated them from their goal, perhaps less, and the gagging, biting stench of smoke, of fire and burned flesh and a thousand nightmares began to fill the air, even the strong crosswind unable to get rid of the poisonous fumes entirely.

But they couldn’t see the courtyard yet: they were still a good deal beneath the hilltop’s level and whatever happened there escaped their searching gazes.

“We have to go higher!” Blaise called from behind him, his voice tight and Draco nodded sharply. Storming onto the scene blindly might be nothing less than suicidal. With a quietly whimpering Giallina tightly clasped in the circle of his arms, the blonde grit his teeth and ruthlessly pushed his wings down again and again, catapulting himself into the air. His thoughts tumbled over themselves in an attempt to give form to the horrors awaiting them just behind the crumbling stone walls, birthing images of massacres, severed limbs, streams of blood, chaos and death – Harry’s lifeless body – while he himself hoped fervently that his imagination would prove to be too crass and overdrawn, influenced by fear as it was.

With a last exertion of force, Draco shot upwards, and the burning buildings finally revealed the former cloister garden in their middle, laying open the entire extent of destruction wreaked upon them. Smoke enveloped him like a smothering cloak, smelling of fire and death and pain and it had him retching and coughing until a bubble-charm like mask covered his nose and mouth mercifully.

Draco didn’t thank the Elf for her intervention, his throat and eyes burning, his every breath laboured as he fanned his wings and started to circle the burning courtyard and manor, taking in the chaos stretching out below him. The thought that this seemed like a tiny fraction of hell and desperation was nagging at the etches of his mind, while his eyes jumped back and forth in a futile attempt to conceive all the chaos, to find a certain someone in its middle.

By Merlin, nothing it seemed had escaped their Gryffindor’s wrath: The buildings surrounding the cloister garden were well ablaze. The formerly white walls were blackened with soot and the rendering cracked and crumbled under the infernal heat. Flames crawled along the houses and stretched ravenous tongues of fire out of the windows, licking the frames in hunger and anticipation for more to devour: more stone, more wood, more flesh.

The cloister garden itself looked as if a bomb had detonated in its centre and the destruction was devastating. Trees, bushes, decorations… everything had been uprooted, swept away and thrashed to the ground and obviously at some point set on fire. The smouldering wreckage was now lying in concentric lines around the column of burning birds that stretched towards the sky, like nightmarish stylized sun beams that venerated Harry’s horrific creation.

And within all that horrendous chaos lay the mutilated sacrifices to that magical force, camouflaged with the same thin layer of soot that covered nearly every surface in the once luscious garden. So well did they blend in with the other debris that Draco at first did not even notice them. But then his eyes landed – more by chance than anything else – on the blackened corpse of a woman, clothes and hair and skin burned away so completely from her body that bones peaked through at her skull and joints, speckles of tainted white within all that charred flesh. The sad remains of her muscles had contracted from the heat and lack of fluids and left her body in a gruesomely distorted pose with her fists raised as if in defence of her killer.

It was a statue of pain and despair … a macabre memorial for the horrors of a battle.

It was as if a veil had been ripped from Draco’s eyes because once he had seen her, ever more corpses and severed body parts started to stand out against the smouldering ruins of the cloister garden, like the requisites of a nightmare.

Neatly severed limbs, decapitated or gutted bodies… wherever Draco looked there were more corpses, more body parts, more carnage. Most of the dead were not even recognizable any more. Draco felt his heart beat ever faster, the breath refusing to leave his lungs again, making each new intake a struggle as he realised the new and unexpected severity of the situation:  
There was no sparkle of rationality to be found in the chaos he was staring at, no logic or mercy and that left room for only a single conclusion: the Vykélari that they were trying to save was no longer the young Gryffindor hero that they knew. With their cruelty the Lanais had corroded his sanity and who could tell in what fragile state they had left it?  
It had been foolish! Utterly foolish to think, to expect that Harry might allow himself to be rescued, to be taken away from his revenge. If he was even still capable of making that decision.

And therefore – just like two months ago during the Battle of Hogwarts – Draco might have to confront one Harry Potter in a magical trial of strength, a wizard much more powerful than him, subdue him and take him away. But this time the young man that had always been more powerful than him, was a fully-fledged submissive; even more than that: this wasn’t the eternal do-gooder that would use ridiculous stunning and disarming spells against even the most powerful of his enemies, refusing to cause any undue harm.  
No, the wreckage to his feet was the work of a totally different being, an animal half mad with grief and pain and hate, reduced to its most basic instincts. A mortally injured lion determined to take as many with it as it could and all the more dangerous for its injury. He might not even recognize them…

At that moment, the realisation truly hit home for the first time, the realisation that Harry might kill them all.

The gears in Draco’s head began to totter, causing the smooth flow of the usually so orderly, meticulous machinery of his mind to slowly disintegrate.  
Draco couldn’t think like that, he had never been one to deal well with the kind of stress and pressure that came with fear and everything in him balked at the prospect of willingly flying into this inferno, of allowing Blaise to do so, Blaise whom he just couldn't face to lose…

“Master?” A voice squeaked close to his ear, thin and frightful and the weak, a tremulous sound that had the Malfoy heir flinch violently. But it was enough to momentarily distract him from the growing panic in his chest, to finally start breathing again, and he glanced down, noticing how tightly he clasped the Elf in his arms, how his nails bore painfully into her thin, spindly arms. Immediately he loosened his hold but didn’t apologize. Malfoy’s didn’t apologize. And never to House Elves.  
Neither did they give up. Strategic, orderly retreats, sure… feigned surrenders, of course; better than failure in any case. But Malfoy’s didn’t accept defeats, they didn’t leave anything untried as long as there was still the tiniest possibility of success.

In all that chaos, in all the bloodshed Harry wasn’t anywhere to be seen and while he didn’t detect his broken body, Draco would assume him to still be alive and act accordingly.  
He took a deep breath. Harry _was_ still alive. No alternatives allowed.  
“Giallina,” he addressed the Elf, his voice coming out more harshly than he intended it to, rougher, ”locate Harry!”

The tiny female didn’t hesitate to reach out a thin forefinger towards the courtyard, her entire hand starting to glow in a pale, greenish light. For a few moments it darted from one goal to the other, Harry’s magic that was all over the place making it difficult to root out its source, but then it suddenly stopped at that ever moving tornado of firebirds.

Draco swallowed drily. Of course the Gryffindor would be found where the density of deadly monsters was the highest. He felt a chill crawl along his spine. How the hell was he supposed to get to Harry there behind that barrier when it was very likely the most powerful magical protection that he would ever encounter? A sentient wall of magical beasts…

His gaze flitted over the ruins as his mind razed, as if the solution was hidden somewhere in the debris – perhaps something to distract them…  
Suddenly his eyes widened, his claws twitching into existence for a brief moment, making Giallina squeak.

There, leaning against a splinted tree stump, lay the unconscious form of Blaises’s cousin Taide, a small gash on his head bleeding profusely and his dark, torn shirt glistening wetly from hidden wounds. But – as incredible as that was – the man was still breathing; Draco’s sharp eyes clearly detected the shallow raising and lowering of his chest. It was inconceivable: everywhere birds were tearing already dead and mutilated bodies apart and here lay Taide, hurt but alive and ignored by the Gryffindor’s magic.

Everything fell into place then, snippets of long forgotten conversations and texts he had read at some point or another assembling to form a whole, like the pieces of a puzzle once their frame was complete and their layout known.

Suddenly it made sense, suddenly there _was_ reason to be found in that chaos, some predictable pattern, and that thought alone was reassuring beyond belief.

It was true that Harry had seemingly lost his mind and fallen into a magical frenzy that he probably could no longer control, even if he wanted to. But as much as it looked like it, such a state was actually not mindless. It was a defence mechanism, enacted in the rare event that a submissive got himself entrapped in a hopeless situation. His magic would act on its owner’s wishes, healing and defending him, killing his enemies… taking revenge.  
But it wasn’t actually erratic, bound to its owner’s emotions as it was; never in history had a submissive been known to accidentally kill someone he cared for… That was why it was sometimes said that a Vykélari’s magic was sentient, after all. It wasn’t the magic, but the Vykélari behind it…

Taide was alive because the Gryffindor’s rampaging magic had recognized his aura, remembered it belonging to someone who had helped him, who didn’t wish him ill. Therefore, while it had made sure he wouldn’t interfere, it had not harmed him past that point… he was untouched by fire and even in the fumes he was breathing without difficulty it seemed.

It seemed ludicrous, but Harry was sparing Taide, and thus it stood to reason that he would recognize him and Blaise as well and refrain to attack them… perhaps they might even calm him enough to be saved. Because if Valerio had been right (and Draco thought he was) leading someone through their inheritance created a bond of trust on an instinctive level, so deeply ingrained that his magic, which was after all guided by those very instincts, would see them as someone to look to for protection.

There was no other way of finding out but to go down there. For a moment longer Draco hesitated, considering whether he should set Giallina down on one of the roofs yet to be reached by the fire, or even outside of the manor on the ground that was still entirely untouched.  
If Draco was right, Harry might not recognize her, see her as a potential danger to be discarded. But if he was wrong, if the birds would attack him, than he’d need every advantage, however small, to get out alive. Without a wand, the Elf was the only active protection he had…

Tightening his hold on her, Draco looked back towards Blaise, who had followed him with a bit of a distance. He knew his lover would not approve, would at the very least insist on doing it together so that the birds would have to divide their attention; and that could not be allowed to happen, Draco didn’t want Blaise down there with possibly murderous beasts, couldn’t bear it.  
Perhaps Harry was even more likely to spare him, due to the life debt that tied them together… a layer of protection that Blaise did not have.

Firming his resolve Draco whispered to Giallina not to interfere in any way and pushed himself forward with a few powerful beats of his wings, before pulling them closer to his body, plummeting towards the very heart of that flickering bluish column.  
If he was wrong, if they’d attack him, then the only way of getting past these beasts alive was going to be the fast one.

* * *

  
Blaise would have sworn that his heart stumbled to an abrupt halt as he saw his lover dive down towards the swarm of birds like a falcon on a hunt. A lunatic, suicidal raptor hunting in a fire storm. Desperately he called his name, screamed it into the night but Draco didn’t even give a sign that he had heard.

With a harsh curse Blaise followed, not even wasting a moment on the naïve hope that the birds might let them pass through to their creator unchallenged – their blood thirst was all too obvious. Fervently he kept his eyes focused on the form of his lover who contrasted starkly against the flickering light of Harry’s birds like a dark angel, fearing that any glance might be the last he saw of him, that any time now the birds would attack and turn his fiancé into one of the crispy, mutilated bodies littering the courtyard.

Only a few metres…

“Draco!” He screamed again, hoping for the blonde listen to him, to veer away at the last moment. The heat enfolded him in an embrace of scorching sparks and biting smoke that burned in his eyes and wafted around the magical bubble covering his mouth; Blaise called forth the additional protective eye membrane that he had already used earlier that day during their free fall with Harry. His vision dimmed somewhat, impaired by the third eyelid but he could still see well enough to notice that very first impulse ripple through the burning column of magical beasts.

Anyone who had ever witnessed a flock of birds could testament to the exceptional coordination such a swarm showed during flight. As if guided by only a single brain the animals moved as one, acted, reacted and never, ever collided. The origin of this ability was however not a shared consciousness but the quick senses and reactions: a bird’s visual sense had such a high temporal resolution that it could see, process and thus act quicker than any human, enabling it to keep track of any flying bodies surrounding it and align its own movements to the flock.

And just like a flock of starlings encountering a raptor these demonic things reacted to Draco’s rushed appearance with grace and agility. But where the survival instinct of the small animals would have made them scatter apart to evade a larger predator, these creatures were driven by Harry’s pain, his grief and hate.

Like a candle attacked with a heating charm the column of birds melted away, lost its shape and transformed into a swirling cloud that rose up against Draco as if it meant to snatch him out of the air.

Blaise felt a scream freeze in his throat, fear and dread ripping through him like lightning. By Morgaine, Harry was really about to attack them… and he couldn’t do anything about it without his wand.

It took him a shamefully long second until he remembered that that was the exact reason why they had taken the House Elves along.

“Alfar!” He hissed just as Draco tucked in his huge wings and moulded himself into a streamlined arrow head to break through the living wall of beasts. “Protect him!”

* * *

  
Draco saw the birds draw together right in front of him, heard Blaise’s shout from behind and the sound curled around his chest and throat like a Devil’s Snare. Of course it wasn’t entirely unexpected that the birds launched an attack: they would have seen him coming long before they could have possibly sensed his magical aura and recognized him; Draco was still holding onto the feint hope that they would veer away as soon as they did, there was still time for them to do so… but the apparent aptness of the bird’s every movement made his skin crawl and he knew he had to be prepared to break through their barrier, not with brute force like a magical battering ram, but with the exact piercing power of a quarrel…

A few forceful beats to give him the necessary momentum and Draco tugged his wings close around his torso and the small Elf in his arms and called upon his magic. Within the blink of an eye it pressed through every pore of his skin and directly to the surface of his shoulders and head and the feathers of his wings to form a tightly fitted, gleaming shield, an armour where he would need it the most; but even more than that it was a sign, Draco’s very own guideon that would be more flashy and shine brighter than any beacon to something that was made of magic itself.

Hopefully.

The birds were so close now, Draco could see the filigree structure of their every feather, the not quite natural glow and the flickering flames coiling around their wings. He made ready to brush past them, pulling his own wings in and hunching his shoulders, expecting to slam into the living wall with bone-crushing force. But he didn’t.  
Right before he could collide with the swarm, a dark bluish light whizzed past him. It cleaved through the ravens and falcons and crows and vultures, ripping into their bodies until they combusted and burst apart in an explosion of light. Draco’s heart leapt into his throat in fear and the change came upon him in an instant. Vicious claws buried themselves into the pale flesh of the young Elf in his arms, a crown of feathers erupting from his hair while the skin around his eyes paled and his front teeth sharpened. Even more magic pushed into the shield he had raised around himself instinctively, swirling over the surface of his wings just as he plunged into that supernova.

It was like falling through a burst of dragon fire: so blindingly bright, searing and painful. And very quickly over.

The air – even pregnant with smoke and the heat of the smouldering courtyard beneath him – seemed blessedly cool in comparison and Draco ripped his eyes open as soon as he felt it. For a short moment he caught a glimpse of Harry’s still form on the ground only a few metres away, a spot of colour amidst all that grey ash and destruction that was half hidden behind the dark, lean legs of what seemed to be an ungulate. The leech dagger was still embedded in his stomach, the long dark lashes of his closed eyes a disturbingly stark contrast to the sickly paleness of his cheeks.

That short glance was all Draco got before he was already past and the ground seemed to jump at him, so sudden was its appearance in his field of vision.

Crying out in surprise Draco straightened and angled his wings to try and prevent himself from smashing into the debris. The brutal pressure under his feathers threatened to make them give way, it was so strong. But Draco held against it, forced his wings into a steady, controlled position that would lift and level him. Just in time he managed to turn his course, the tips of his primary feathers barely grazing the ground, whirling up a cloud of hot ashes and sparks.

The manoeuvre had slowed him down considerably and with a few more forward flaps he came to a stop entirely and let himself fall to his feet, crouching behind the smouldering skeleton of a large bush. His heart drumming madly in his chest Draco set Giallina down into the burned dirt and with a last warning to her not to interfere at all he made to turn around, already fearing what he would see.  
Because the magic attacking the birds had held that strange, inhuman foreignness that Draco knew to associate with House Elf magic. And since Giallina hadn’t been the perpetrator, he knew exactly who the source had been. What had Alfar been thinking? Why had he attacked the swarm when all it could possibly achieve was enraging the beasts?

Draco turned and just as he had feared, the sight presenting itself made his breath freeze in his lungs.

The swarm was dispersing.  
Like a hornet’s nest poked with a stick the birds scattered, filling the entire sky above the courtyard in their search for the intruder, the enemy which to kill. The sound of hundreds of furiously flapping wings and piercing screeches exploded into the silence, shrill and rough and horrible and it _hurt_ , beating against the eardrums with vicious, unnatural force.

Draco cringed and pressed his palms against his ears, crying out and feeling more than hearing Giallina do the same behind him. Merlin, it was deafening!

Then a single note suffused the cacophony, clear and high and victorious, and the birds answered with excited glee.

“Oh shit!” Draco groaned, watching them converge towards where they had found the source of the attack resting in Blaise’s arms. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of birds with sharp beaks and sharper talons… they would rip them apart and there was nothing Draco could do. Even if he flew to his lover’s side, there were too many of them to fight off, too much wild, powerful magic…

A spark of helplessness pierced his lungs like a multitude of frozen daggers, embedding themselves in his lungs, his heart, his throat… painful stabs that made breathing almost impossible for a moment, let alone thinking.

All he knew was that he needed to act, and quickly. The urge to attack the birds, to draw their attention away from his lover was overwhelming, but Draco realised that there was really only one being within hundreds of miles who could possibly put a stop to this force – and Harry was unconscious. He’d kill them, and die of his wounds himself, never knowing … never realising…

And his magic…

Draco stopped short. By Merlin, his magic! It was very much sentient… whether in its own right, or because it was a part of Harry’s subconscious, it didn’t matter… it was capable of feelings and logic, as primitive as it might be. Even with Harry out cold, his magic would still be capable of making decisions.  
Not all was lost as long as he could appeal to it!

Draco started running towards the centre of the courtyard where Harry lay in a heap on the ground, scrambling over the debris, over fallen and burned bushes and plants and he didn’t want to know what else, using his wings to balance himself and help him over larger obstacles. Fervently he tried to ignore the cacophony of bird cries and flapping and rough shouts, but it was impossible and his fingers were trembling.

“Harry!” He called out over the ruckus, even though there were still several metres between them. “Harry, stop it!”

A shadowy figure moved there in the darkness above the submissive, the same hooved creature he had seen when flying past Harry. Its long, graceful legs framed the Gryffindor’s fallen body protectively, like the pillars of a canopy.  
There was darkness within, a perceived darkness that had nothing to do with the shadowy colour of its coat, and everything with the unholy intelligence deeply embedded in its coldly gleaming eyes, ghostly white orbs that followed Draco’s every move as he stumbled towards it over the debris. A pair of long ears swivelled towards him, twitching.

It reared its massive head, stretched it forward and roared at Draco in a voice so deep and all-pervasive that it vibrated through even the marrow of his bones. Draco froze, all too aware just how powerful this beast was. But he didn’t retreat, couldn’t have moved in this moment even if he wished it, and the shadow stag jumped forward in irritation, stamping its long legs threateningly. A shower of bluish sparks sprayed into the night where its hooves smashed onto the stones and magic danced around its legs like electric currents.

Draco licked over dry lips. “Harry…” His voice was thick and rough and not nearly as confident as he needed it to be.

“Harry.” He tried again, stronger this time.  
“You know me.” Praying to whoever would listen that it was true, Draco curled in his claws to hide the faint tremors that shook them. A short outcry cut through the air but he didn’t dare to turn around. It had sounded like the high, squeaky voice of a House Elf and Alfar’s face flashed through his mind – they shouldn’t have taken the Elves along. By Merlin, they shouldn’t have. And Blaise… Draco fervently hoped his lover was okay, but he still didn’t dare to take his eyes away from the deadly beast in front of him.

“You know me.” He repeated, letting his wings slowly slide out of his back. The stag leapt forward before dancing back again, back to hover over Harry’s body and Draco realised that this central part of his magic would not leave the Gryffindor’s side, was not so mindlessly drowned in the rage and grief that Harry had been feeling in his last conscious moments to leave him unprotected. That at least was a good sign.

Crouching low to the ground in the vague hope of appearing non-threatening, Draco fanned his wings out and did what his instincts told him to: he pushed his magic to the surface of his body, letting it swirl over his feathers, suffusing it with the soothing, calming touch that they had already used on Harry in the hospital on the night of his 222nd full moon.

Carefully Draco moved forward as quickly as he could, as slowly as he must. The stag could attack him at any moment, _would_ attack him if it thought for only a single second that the Slytherin might pose a danger and Draco was afraid, his heart beating so fast and forceful that he thought it might just burst his ribcage apart.  
“Stop fighting, Harry, it is safe now. I promise it is. Trust me.” Draco begged, knowing that he couldn’t trust him in turn. Not this night.

Suddenly the stag reared up, beating with its front hooves into the air in a feigned attack as if it wanted Draco to know he would be trampled into a bloody pulp if he came any closer. Draco flinched, taken aback by how truly huge the beast was at just this moment. Only barely he kept himself from falling as he took an involuntary step away. But he couldn’t run now, instinctively he knew that running would be a fatal error at this point, for him, for all of them, and he forced himself to resist, even when the stag smashed its large hooves against the ground with a sound like thunder.

With clenched teeth and ducked close to the ground Draco crept forward, slowly reaching out with an open palm, sparks of magic on his skin.  
“I’m not your enemy!” He breathed, before conceding to a short “not anymore”.

Again the beast shook its massive legs and snorted angrily, but it took a step closer and Draco waited anxiously with bated breath. ‘Come on!’ He begged inwardly.

At that moment a scream ripped through the air, barely perceivable over the ruckus of Harry’s birds, but it made the blood freeze in Draco’s veins.  
That wasn’t the sound of a magical creation, not the sound of one of Harry’s birds and unlike the clear outcries of pain or surprise or fright that he had heard from Blaise and Alfar and used to track their movements with, this was one of mortal terror and death, high and shrill and loud and abruptly tapering off into a horrifying gurgling and coughing that planted the nightmare of a pierced lung or a cut throat in Draco’s mind.

So all-consuming and cold was the fear that took him that Draco whipped around unthinkingly, expecting to see his lover’s dying body fall from the sky, a shadow against the stars framed by the gleaming copper of his wings…

It was a grave mistake and Draco realised it as soon as he heard the aggressive snort to his right. He froze, seeing from the corner of his eye the steely gleam of the stag’s antlers, poised to spear him. A thousand half-formed thoughts rushed through his mind, vague images and notions and the one certain knowledge that he could neither outrun nor dodge the impersonation of Harry’s rage.

There was only the one thing…

Soothing magical sparks once again sprung to the surface of his hands, tingling like the comforting heat of a fire on cold skin.

The stag leaped forward and Draco tried to roll with the movement, tried to grab the enormous antlers to keep them from stabbing him and let his own magic _hopefully_ calm the raging beast.

Almost he managed it, his right hand closing around one of the horns, sliding over the surprisingly smooth and icy cold surface before coming to an abrupt stop pressed against the next forking. But with a quick jerk of its head the animal evaded his other hand, driving the sharp tips of its antlers into Draco’s side. Sharp pain exploded around each of the wounds, a firework of agony culminating in a furious crescendo as it hurled him around with brutal force, driving all air from Draco’s lungs and ripping him off the ground.  
Out of pure instinct Draco didn’t let go as he was lifted, one hand buried in the coarse hide at the stag’s neck, the other clenched tightly around the antler, enforcing his hold by making the palms of his hands sticky with magic.

For a moment gravity had no hold on him, for a moment he was flying, then the daggers in his side were dislodged as his feet crashed against the ground, his legs giving way. He stumbled against the stag, only supported by the cold snout under his chest and his painfully tight grip on the stags head.

The pain was overwhelming, shocking, flooding his mind and superseding any rational thought and so it took him a moment to actually realise just how he stood: leaning against his attacker, still on his feet only by virtue of the magical beast’s support.  
“Shit.” He groaned, gazing through tears of pain into the ghostly pale eyes of the stag. He couldn’t make out any emotions in those icy depths but the animal stood frozen just as he did. Unmoving because it had recognized him? Draco hoped so. He hoped it was over, he hoped Blaise was alive, hoped they’d all be still alive in a few minutes.

It all depended on Harry, depended on whether Harry trusted them enough to let go. Wearily Draco lowered his forehead unto the stag’s, whispering to it quietly. “You’re safe now. Promise.”

* * *

  
Alfar’s shrill cries still echoed in Blaise’s mind even after the small body had vanished in a flurry of burning wings and dagger-like talons and beaks as if he never had been.  
Morgaine! He had ripped him away! Harry – _Harry’s beasts_ – had just ripped his most loyal, his most trusted servant from his grasp effortlessly, ripped him away and apart while disregarding Blaise entirely.

In fact, they had never been interested in the Vykélari in the first place, focusing the brunt of their brutal attack on Alfar with single-minded determination. Driving their claws and beaks into the Elf’s flesh viciously, they had no more than scratched or superficially burned Blaise, always steering away from him as soon as they touched him. Even now they almost ignored his very existence, except for a few that fluttered around him, brushing him with their hurtful, fiery wings only to veer away immediately.

It was as if they recognized him, Blaise thought; but if that was the case, they had recognized Alfar as well, recognized him as the Elf that had attacked Harry with a stunning spell when he had tried to flee Lanai Manor after being brought there against his will, and as the Elf that had attacked them just now.

Blaise felt himself trembling with shock, shaken not by the loss of a mere House Elf, however loyal or valued it had been, but by the sheer brutality of the attack. A cold cruelty that he had never known Harry to be capable of.

At least it sparked in him the hope that their Gryffindor would not really attack them at all if they proceeded carefully, that Draco was safe, wherever he was.

He turned away from the gruesome display with only a hint of hesitancy and regret, trying instead to catch the sight of his wayward lover anywhere in the courtyard beneath him. Oh, how he was going to have a talk with Draco about his sudden penchant for rushing into suicidal situations like some moronic Gryffindor!

It was difficult trying to detect anything specific in the chaos, especially since the birds had already scattered again and now crossed his vision randomly, and he had to carefully evade others that were getting at him aggressively before steering away in the last possible moment.  
But little by little they settled down onto the courtyard, covering almost the entire ground with their demonic bodies, a sea of black feathers and bluish white flames. Silence once more spread across the ruins, broken only by sporadic fluttering and the odd angry screech that proved how very ready the beasts were to rise again in a moment’s notice, to rip and claw and hack and kill.

Finally amidst all the confusing movement, there was a hint of platinum blonde. But the spark of gladness soon turned to ice as Blaise noticed his fiancé’s slumped position, draped over the head of an enormous shadowy stag. Almost artfully the two of them stood frozen in their grotesque pose with birds settling all around them, like in a strange snow globe. It would have seemed so very peaceful a sight if not for the spot of dark wetness blooming on Draco's shirt, making it cling to his skin.

Suddenly Blaise’s eyes were burning and his throat was closing up. No… oh Morgaine no, this could not be happening! Not ever, but especially not now!

Not daring to breathe he glided down towards the pair. Draco’s chest was still rising with shallow breaths, he was still holding on, this much Blaise could see and the stag was not attacking... at least that! But this didn’t necessarily mean that Draco was not injured gravely, nor that the thing didn’t intend to just watch him die, watch the life fade from the silvery eyes Blaise loved so much... all he knew was that his lover was hurt and he wasn't rising… and that the stag was swathed in ominously dark magic that clung to it like tar…

"Draco?" He asked the moment his feet touched the ground, blackbirds and crows scattering in all directions around him. He didn’t have it in him to pay them any attention, not even to the heat they exuded; His voice trembled so afraid was he of not getting an answer.

"Draco!" Once more called into the eerie silence, a hint of desperation tinging his voice.

Then a barely perceptible hissing and the blonde’s fingers twitched where they were entangled in the multibranched antlers.

"Shut… the hell up." Draco pressed out through gritted teeth, his voice pained and muffled, as if it was pressed against the short, coarse animal hide. But Blaise breathed a sigh in relief, his shoulders slumping as some part of the tenseness left them.

Stiffly Draco turned his head in Blaise’s direction, still letting the stag support his weight. Their eyes met briefly, one glance enough to share the worry and apprehension they were both feeling so acutely, the confusion over this entire horrible situation and the behaviour of Harry’s beasts; but first and foremost the relief at seeing each other alive, and the cast-iron determination to keep it that way and to prevail.  
Valerio might be dead and gone but they would not grant him any kind of victory, would not let him have any part of Harry, least of all his life. That was not something they’d let him claim!

"Go ‘n help him." Draco muttered and Blaise nodded once, his eyes flitting to their submissive’s fallen form and he swallowed drily, his throat clicking in the silence. Although he could not see much of the young submissive, the jewelled handle of the dagger protruding from his back was hard to miss. Their gryphon didn’t have a lot of time left, that much was for sure.

As quickly as he dared to, Blaise moved closer to the younger man, careful to avoid all too sudden movements and always keep Draco and that beast in sight whose pale eyes followed his every move. He could hear Draco whisper to it, hushed words of safety and comfort and he hoped it would be enough to keep Harry’s vengeful magic at bay.

Birds with far too intelligent eyes stalked slowly out of his way, staring at him, observing him with an intensity that made his skin crawl. They were slowing him down intentionally, Blaise realised, controlling his movements so that he wouldn’t be able to launch a surprise attack.

Or to flee.

They awaited him even, there where the submissive lay, sitting on his shoulder, his hip and all around him. Like silent, grim sentinels.

Carefully Blaise crouched down next to Harry, tense and ready to act should it be necessary. But the birds showed no hint of aggressiveness, no inclination to attack and Blaise turned to the young missive, licking his dry lips. How could he look so vulnerable and small after all the death and destruction he had caused? Pale and drawn, with skin the colour of clotted milk and bluish lips. Tear streaks marred his cheeks like ugly scars that Blaise feared would never fade.  
What had they done to the brilliant, passionate young man that had laughed and danced and kissed with a contagious fire only hours ago?

‘Please don’t be dead!’ Blaise begged in his mind, his throat closing up as he pressed a finger gently into the soft skin of Harry’s throat, aware of the many eyes observing him. Mordred, he was so cold to the touch. But he could feel Harry’s pulse returning the pressure, far too softly for his liking and far too slow and unsteady, but it was there nonetheless.

The demons around him forgotten, Blaise focused his attention on that long cruel knife that he vaguely recognized as a leech dagger, having seen a similar thing displayed in Lucius’ office once.  
How proud the Malfoy patriarch had been when telling him and Draco of the artefact’s powers, how weapons like this had been forged by mated Vykélari pairs and used to target the strongest link of another mating.  
The submissive. Someone like Harry.

Blaise hadn’t been very impressed then. Why show off a magical artefact if there was no one and nothing to use it on anywhere in the world?  
Now he felt just sickened at the ignorance of his own thoughts.

With a swift, fluid movement he laid the fingers of one hand around the dagger’s handle, and with the other he grasped Harry’s torso to hold him still. As steadily as he could, so as to not injure their nightingale further, Blaise pulled the cursed thing out of the younger man’s back. Harry didn’t even twitch and Blaise could only think how fortunate it was that Harry was already unconscious!  
As soon as the weapon was free, Blaise flung it aside carelessly and turned to Harry once more. Gently he eased him onto his back, causing the few birds on his shoulder and hip to flutter and resettle on his chest and legs. Blaise tried not to let the beasts disturb him and cradled Harry’s cheek with tender fingers to push a burst of magic into his limp body, knowing that he must be magically depleted to a near fatal extent.

At least that was what he tried to do, but like a magnet held against another of the same polarity, his magic was repulsed. Blaise could even feel the weak streams of Harry’s own magic recoil beneath his fingers as if encountering something distasteful, wreathing agitatedly like a bundle of snakes poked with a stick. The large magpie sitting on the submissive’s chest lunged forward with a shrill shriek and pecked into his fingers.

Blood welled from the small wound and quickly Blaise pulled back. “What the hell…?”

Behind him Draco cried out in pain and Blaise turned just in time to see the stag ripping away from his lover who fell to the ground with a soft thud, bereft of the only support that had kept him standing in the first place.

Frozen Blaise watched as the large animal began to circle threateningly around him and Harry. Malicious eyes speared him, letting him know he and Draco were only still alive because this beast wished it and how quickly that decision could be revoked.  
Swallowing nervously and frustrated with an audible click in his dry throat, Blaise turned to look towards his fiancé who was pushing himself up on his hands and knees with obvious difficulties.

“Draco!” He called out. ”Something’s wrong with Harry – Harry’s magic.” Blaise corrected himself. Hell, _everything_ was wrong with Harry at the moment. But this went further than the trauma he’d gone through. This was… unnatural. Wrong. And it scared him, because Harry _needed_ magic, needed it now and he couldn’t see them talking the birds into returning to where they had come from, didn’t even know if that was possible.

“He’s not… I can’t transfer magic to him.”

“Fuck!” Draco moaned. Whether in reaction to what he had told him, or from pain, Blaise didn’t know.

“I knew it wasn’t a normal calming draught.” The blonde muttered, directing pain filled but serious eyes to his lover. ”Wrong… wrong colour.”  
Gingerly Draco sat up and started to fiddle with the as of yet invisible bracelet on his wrist, trying to get it off with his unsteady fingers.

“Severus. He’ll know.” With that he threw the emergency portkey at Blaise who caught the silver chain in one hand.

Yes, Blaise thought, Severus would know, there could be no doubt about it, he was after all one of the most talented potion masters in Britain, perhaps the best. And the portkey would also put Harry under a stasis spell that would give his rescuers whatever time they needed to help him.

But Narcissa and his own mother would be informed of someone arriving at the safe house the moment it happened and if Severus was not there already… especially in his current condition Blaise didn’t want to hand Harry over to the next greedy bastard trying to exploit him.

There was nothing to be done however, regardless of how much Blaise wanted it to be different. He’d rather have Harry forcefully mated to himself and Draco, rather have to endure his hate and scorn than see him dead.

One last time Blaise indulged himself with a short gentle caress over the raven hair, then he fastened the bracelet around Harry’s wrist.

Immediately the portkey was triggered by Harry’s grave condition, and he vanished into a whirl of colours.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I hope you could find some enjoyment in it despite all the gore and body parts and violence.
> 
> I wish you all a wonderful Christmas time and I’m looking forward to hearing your opinions!  
> 


	29. What Happened So Far...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **HOW TO READ THIS SUMMARY:**  
>  This is a chronological summary of the story. Everything that happened so far is outlined very briefly by the text that is in italics. Reading only this should refresh your memory. If, however, you feel that the given information is not enough, the text below is a more detailed version that contains everything that I, as the author, think is important for the story.  
> 

**THURSDAY THE 9TH OF JULY, 1998**  
_Harry comes into his inheritance. The Weasley's think it to be a curse (The Burrow)_  
Triggered by the rise of the 222nd full moon since his birth, Harry comes into his inheritance as a submissive Vykélari during dinner with the Weasleys. The Weasleys bring him to St. Mungo's when his magic shatters all his senses for restructuring and then draws back into his core.

_The Malfoys & Zabinis are informed of Harry's condition during Draco's and Blaise's engagement party. Lucius sends Draco and Blaise to St. Mungo's (Malfoy Manor) _  
When his condition worsens despite excessive treatment for curse damage, a Mediwizard (McAuley), who suspects Harry being a Vykélari, foregoes his superior and consults the head of the Vykélari community in Britain, Lucius Malfoy, who is on House Arrest in Malfoy Manor where Blaise and Draco are currently celebrating their recent engagement.  
Once he deduces that Harry is becoming a submissive Vykélari, Lucius sends his son and Blaise to St. Mungo's to help him through the inheritance and then take him to Italy to mate him. The two Slytherins reluctantly comply.

_Draco and Blaise assist Harry during his inheritance and take him to Italy in secrecy once he loses consciousness (St. Mungo's) _  
In the hospital they have a short hassle with some agitated Weasleys before they are taken to Harry's room by Healer in charge Andrew Cowan and Mediwizard McAuley. They find Harry terrified and confused and generally in a horrible condition, with his wings bound together and his arms and legs tied to the bed, emitting warning calls unconsciously. Infuriated they refuse any hospital staff to accompany them. Then they help Harry regain his senses and take him to Italy.

**FRIDAY THE 10TH OF JULY, 1998**  
_Harry wakes up and is informed of his situation and status as a submissive Vykélari. He is outraged and doesn't believe them and is consequently grounded by Blaise (Lanai Manor) _  
Harry wakes sometime at noon in a bed room in Lanai Manor with wings, claws, enhanced sight, feathers in his hair and green and ultraviolet markings on his body.  
Draco and Blaise come and take him to the gardens for lunch, telling him that he has become a submissive Vykélari and that his rights are practically nonexistent when it comes to Vykélari mating. When Harry deduces that they took him from the hospital to mate him, he demands to be taken back to London and tries to leave in a fit of rage after being denied, Blaise orders the House Elves to not let him come near the Manor's wards or get access to a wand.

_Harry tries to flee unsuccessfully using the floo. During the following argument Harry's wayward magic attacks Blaise. Harry subconsciously tries to reject his inheritance (Lanai Manor) _  
Furious, Harry leaves and stumbles over a fireplace with an open floo connection. He tries to escape but is stunned by a House Elf, sent after him by Blaise and Draco who saw his flight attempt through the windows.  
Blaise binds and enervates him. The Slytherins humiliate him, Blaise is furious that Harry endangered himself by trying to floo to an unknown location in a country where dark magic is highly regarded and he tries to intimidate Harry and force him to accept his position as a submissive but Harry's magic attacks him instead and negates all changes of Harry's transformation.  
The Slytherins are shocked when they realise that Harry is trying to reject his inheritance and is ill with magical exhaustion and they try to gently convince Harry to accept his being a submissive Vykélari by calling his attention to everything he could do with his newfound powers. Harry is still suspicious even when they promise not to force him into mating, not least because they refuse to commit themselves to a date when they might let him leave Lanai Manor.  
Later Blaise and Draco decide to try and get Harry to mate with them.

_Severus is informed of the situation, Narcissa tells the Weasleys of Harry's inheritance (Malfoy Manor) _  
Severus comes to the Manor to congratulate his godson and fiancé since he wasn't at their engagement party but is told by Lucius of the situation.  
It is revealed that he has a part in keeping Lucius out of prison by using a spying potion on the Aurors responsible for the Malfoy case (basically like a Pensieve that instead of memories shows what a person is seeing. For it to work, a drop of the liquid needs to be applied to the victim's eye).  
The Weasleys and Hermione come to Malfoy Manor in search for answers after meeting only dead ends before. Narcissa tells them that Harry is a submissive and has been taken to a secret place by her son and future son-in-law.

**SATURDAY THE 11TH OF JULY, 1998**  
_Draco and Blaise have a conversation with Lucius, Narcissa, Amalyne, Severus and a few portraits of Draco's Vykélari ancestors (Lanai Manor/Malfoy Manor) _  
Draco and Blaise talk to their parents and Severus via a two-way-mirror connection, telling them of their decision to court Harry but also that they won't force him into it, to which Lucius, Amalyne and Narcissa agree. Severus tells the Malfoys and Zabinis of Harry's past with the Dursleys.  
The portraits of two of Draco's Vykélari ancestors – Adler Malfoy and Ives Malfoy, née Prewett – agree to help the Slytherin's in their pursuit of Harry.  
Narcissa promises to try to send them some of the submissive's possessions along with the portraits and some of Severus' spying potion to be used on Harry.

_Harry sends a secret letter to Hermione and Ron (Lanai Manor) _  
Harry writes a letter to his friends and tricks a House Elf into sending it to England via owl post.

_Blaise and Draco promise to let Harry speak with his friends (Lanai Manor) _  
Because Harry still doesn't really believe them, Draco and Blaise offer to let him question them under veritaserum but Harry instead demands to speak to his friends, telling the Slytherins that he will believe Hermione and Ron. They promise to arrange for Harry to meet his friends on Monday.  
They spent the rest of the day at the beach behind Lanai Manor.

**SUNDAY THE 12TH OF JULY, 1998**  
_Harry speaks with Ives and promises to give Blaise and Draco the chance to court him_  
Ives, whose elder brother is the direct ancestor of Molly Weasley, nee Prewett, offers Harry a deal: he will tell him how to force Blaise and Draco to let him go the day before the new term in Hogwarts starts (31st of August); in return Harry is to give the two Slytherins an honest chance to court him and make an effort to understand them. Harry agrees.

_Harry, Draco and Blaise connect magically for the first time. Harry has his first flying lesson. Blaise suggests a political career for Harry. _  
Harry tells Draco and Blaise that he'll give them a chance, but doesn't mention what Ives promised him.  
Because Harry is still influenced by his painful first transformation, he is not able to transform, so Blaise has them all connect magically, allowing Harry to feel and observe Draco's transformation. While Harry likes the intensity and depth of the bond, Blaise and especially Draco are uncomfortable with it.  
Harry transforms himself and Draco and Blaise teach him how to fly.  
Afterwards they talk: Harry forgives Draco for his past wrongdoings. They speak about career choices and when Harry says he doesn't want to become an Auror Blaise proposes a political career for Harry and Draco promises to support him if he chose such a path. Draco leaves to speak with Adler.

_Blaise and Harry find out that their instincts are not so easy to overcome. Harry admits to having sent a letter to his friends. Blaise gives Harry an emergency portkey and kisses him. _  
Harry, thinking the Slytherins' unease over the connection is a sign that they changed their minds and don't want to mate him anymore, hints that he'd be fine with returning to England. Blaise loses control over his instincts and cages Harry within his wings, displaying his magic which puts Harry into some kind of trance. Noticing what he is doing Blaise retracts his magic and convinces Harry with some difficulty that he didn't do it deliberately. Still under some magical influence, Harry admits to having sent a letter to his friends. To protect him in case someone learns of Harry's whereabouts from the letter, Blaise gives him one of a pair of emergency portkeys he had made for himself and Draco during the war and then proceeds to kiss him. Harry, upset because both of them are still somewhat influenced by their magic, retreats to his rooms. Later Draco and Blaise come by to apologize and ask him on an official date.

_Draco speaks with Adler who reassures him that it is possible to close off an established mating bond for privacy and tells him of Ives' deal with Harry_  
Adler confirms that it is possible to close an established mating bond and thus maintain a level of privacy. He then tells Draco about Harry's deal with Ives (Harry giving the Slytherins the chance to woo him in return for a free pass to leave on the 31st of August). Draco is angry but understands why Harry did it. He and Blaise later decide not to mention anything to Harry and instead make it seem as if they had planned to return to Hogwarts with Harry all along. Harry believes them.

**MONDAY THE 13TH OF JULY, 1998**  
_Pansy brings her two-way-mirror to the Burrow and Ron speaks with Blaise and Draco_  
Blaise and Draco convince Pansy to go to the Burrow and give her two-way-mirror with a connection to Lanai Manor to Ron and Hermione. She notices the growing attachment her friends have formed to Harry and is concerned that they might destroy their reputation if they don't mate Harry.  
At the Burrow, Pansy is met by Ron. After she has given him the mirror and leaves, Ron makes a magical vow to retaliate if Draco or Blaise betray Harry or hurt him deliberately (Tiwaz oath). In turn Draco and Blaise vow to not force Harry and to do right by him.

_Harry speaks with his friends and Hermione reads an article to him about his inheritance and the Vykélari laws, Harry decides to help his hosts_  
Harry tells his friends what happened so far and informs them of the letter. Hermione and Ron confirm that Harry basically has no rights concerning Vykélari courtship and mating. They read an article to him that was published that morning by Sonia Crane: through an interview with a Mediwizard it is described what happened in the hospital. A historian specializing on purebloods and Vykélari (Jennifer Palmer) describes what be happening to Harry now (forced to mate, share his magic, refer to his husbands in matters such as employment, in time birth a heir). The article criticizes the purebloods, the Malfoys (emphasizing their role in the war as Death Eaters) and social structures where there are ministry independent institutions mostly run by purebloods and demands that the ministry interferes.  
Hermione and Ron think the article can be used to change the Vykélari laws and could even lead to Lucius' conviction. Harry wants to protect Blaise's and Draco's reputation and asks Hermione to arrange an interview with Crane over the two-way-mirror to relay his viewpoint.

_Draco and Blaise meet with their parents again_  
Lucius is beside himself with rage over the article as it endangers the outcome of his trial and the standing of purebloods and demands that Draco and Blaise force Harry into a mating bond and bring him back to Britain where he intends to use Harry's prestige and power to keep himself out of prison and his family's reputation intact. Amalyne explains their plan to arrange an illusion for the public to disguise the true role they have intended for Harry and Narcissa makes it clear that she has the means to force Harry to yield to their wishes. First Severus then Draco and Blaise try to reason with them until Lucius tries to guild-trap his son and Blaise loses his temper, closing the mirror-connection after telling their parents that he and Draco will never force Harry nor allow them near him while he is still unmated.

_Draco and Blaise warn Harry and his friends_  
Draco and Blaise take some precautious measures to keep Harry safe (alert Adler and Ives and give them House Elves so that they themselves can become active in an emergency, revoking Harry's ban to leave, tell the House Elves to prevent owl-post from reaching Harry, to protect him and to not let anyone enter the Manor's grounds,).  
They warn Hermione and Ron from their parents and ask them to retreat to a safe house. Hermione promises to take Ginny and Ron to Australia to their parents.  
Harry offers to help them with the ramifications of the article but Blaise refuses, telling him openly what their parents have planned for Harry. Draco his displeased as he is still somewhat loyal to his parents.

_Harry, Draco and Blaise go on their date. _  
Draco, Blaise and Harry have their date: together with the Battellis – an Italian family the Slytherins have sworn to secrecy – they play a kind of aerial battle on chariots pulled by Pihassan horses (winged horses) while heading for the foots of the mountains. Once there, the three of them skydive to the ground where they spent the afternoon and the Slytherins show Harry a Pensieve Theatre. Afterwards they apparate to a restaurant floating over Rome.

**TUESDAY THE 14TH OF JULY, 1998**  
_When Harry returns to his rooms he is greeted by a dominant Italian Vykélari in the two-way mirror who kidnapped Hermione and Ron. Threatening to torture and kill his friends the dominant wants to force Harry to mate his son._  
When Harry returns to his rooms after the date a dominant Italian Vykélari calls out from the two-way-mirror of which Hermione and Ron have the corresponding mirror. In it Harry sees the Italian standing next to his tied up friends – who seem conspicuously frightened and wrecked though uninjured – in an unfamiliar room. In front of Harry's eyes the man tortures Ron in an attempt to force Harry to leave the manor and mate his son. Harry acquiesces.

_Harry tries to flee but Draco and Blaise intercept him. Blaise's uncle and a group of Italian Aurors (guardia) appear. _  
A House Elf informs Blaise and Draco that Harry is forced to leave the manor. Draco immediately runs after him. From a window he sees Harry walking down the driveway towards the manor's wards. He tries catching him in flight but Harry is faster. Blaise appears with the House Elves and manages to intercept Harry in a risky manoeuvre. By proposing that Harry could leave in the morning using the emergency portkey after contacting his friends, Blaise verifies that Hermione and Ron are used against Harry. Just then group of Italian Aurors (the guardia) appears with one of Blaise's uncles.

_Harry leaves with Blaise's uncle. The guardia accuses Blaise and Draco of abusing Harry. They are put under House Arrest and their wands are taken._  
Draco takes Harry aside while Blaise goes to confront the newcomers and tells him to use the emergency portkey to leave Italy. But Harry insinuates that they are being eavesdropped on and attacks Draco, rendering him unable to fight. Meanwhile Blaise's uncle reveals that they got Harry's letter and Blaise and Draco are accused of the abuse of a submissive Vykélari. When Blaise turns because he hears Harry attack Draco, he is stunned from behind. Blaise's uncle leaves with Harry, making it seem as if he is taking him away for his own good. The guardia takes away Blaise's and Draco's wands and put them under House Arrest (enforced with bracelets that will notify the guardia if they leave the manor's grounds). It becomes obvious that they believe the Slytherins to be guilty. Only one of the wizards is doubtful. The guardia leaves.

_With the help of the spying potion that Adler used on Harry, Draco finds out how Harry was blackmailed to leave the manor and where to find Harry. Meanwhile Blaise tries unsuccessfully to convince some of his Italian acquaintances to help them._  
Adler admits to Draco that he used Severus Snape's spying potion on Harry, so that all his memories are copied into a Pensieve. Using this Pensieve, Draco sees Harry's memories of the date and realises that all three of them were about to fall for each other. He witnesses Harry being blackmailed by an unknown (probably polyjuiced) man and how he tortures Harry's friends. While he can't really reason Harry's whereabouts from that memories, he is confident that once he reaches the fresher ones from after Harry left the manor, they will probably reveal where he has been brought to. Meanwhile Blaise tries to convince some of his Italian acquaintances, including the Battellis, to help them, but they refuse out of fear of Blaise's relatives.

_Blaise enlists Daphne's help. A distraught Draco barges into the room telling Blaise they need to save Harry now ._  
Blaise contacts Daphne and gets her to help them. She is to contact Snape and have him go to his save house to wait for Harry to arrive with the emergency portkey. She is also to talk to McGonagall and the Weasleys and Lupins, inform them of the situations and ask for their help. While Daphne and her sister Astoria are thusly occupied, Draco barges into the room, obviously upset and fearing for Harry and tells Blaise that they need to leave now and save Harry.

_Blaise's uncle brings Harry to the Lanai's country estate where they want him to bond with Taide Lanai. Taide however helps Harry to free himself. Everything goes horribly wrong when the Lanai patriarch Valerio orders Hermione and Ron to be killed in order to create a distraction and recapture Harry. At his Limit, Harry prepares for revenge._  
Blaise's uncle Eleuterio brings Harry to the country estate of the Lanai. Upon their arrival Harry's magic is immediately bound, leaving him defenceless. When Harry refuses to proceed any further before his friends are released, Valerio makes an Unbreakable Vow to not catch, harm or hold captive anyone Harry holds dear after he is mated to his son Taide, but to kill his two captives if Harry does not comply. After that Harry is made to drink a calming potion and pressured to mate Tade. But Harry finds himself incapable of doing that. Taide meanwhile does not wish to mate Harry at all and helps him escape by releasing the block on his magic. Harry's magic is agitated and trikes out. The oldest Lanai falls hardly and is unconscious or dead. After getting his magic under control again, Harry pretends to take Taide hostage to force Valerio to release his friends. Valerio however orders them to be killed instead and while Harry is distracted, one of the Lanais stabs a magical dagger into Harry's back, that sucks away his magic. Desperate and grieving, Harry pushes the rest of his magic out of his body to attack his tormentors and loses consciousness.

_Harry makes his magic leave his body and loses consciousness. His magic cruelly kills everyone present except Taide Blaise and Draco apparate to a point close to the manor and fly up to the ruins with two House Elves (Alfar, Giallina). They manage to save Harry and sent him back to Britain via the emergency portkey, however Alfar dies and Draco is wounded._  
Harry manages to overcome the dagger's power that continues to draw from his magic by pushing it out of his body entirely. He immediately loses consciousness from the ensuing magical exhaustion. Taking the form of a black stag and hundreds of birds his magic tortures and kills everyone present except Taide, who is hurt only when he tries to reach Harry in order to stop the killing spree. Blaise and Draco try to apparate to the manor with the House Elves' help, but it is warded against House Elf apparition. They land somewhere close and Blaise takes Alfar and Draco Giallina and they fly up to the manor. There they find everything destroyed and in ruins, and several corpses burnt beyond recognition. Giallina finds Harry in the middle of a tornado of burning birds and flies towards him (as he sae Taide unconscious but alive in the carnage and theorized correctly that Harry's magic can differentiate between friends and enemies). Blaise, not knowing what Draco does, fears for him and has Alfar attack the birds before Draco can reach them. They scatter and regroup and attack Alfar, killing him, but recognize Blaise as an ally, leaving him mostly uninjured. Meanwhile Draco, trying to help, tries to reach Harry in order to calm him and his magic. He is intercepted by the stag and taken on its antlers but it recognizes him and ceases its attack. With Alfar dead, and Giallina hidden the magical beasts go quiet again. Blaise reaches Harry and recognizing the leech dagger he tries to transfer magic to the other boy. When that doesn't work he puts the emergency portkey on him and Harry is immediately transported back to Britain.


	30. Breath of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it has been practically forever and I'm sorry. I'm also going to stop apologizing, because this is getting ridiculous. I'll just update when I can and the only promise I'll make is to never ever start another WIP...

Outwardly indifferent Severus stared down at Potter's still form, watching the boy hovering four feet above the ground of Damask Tower's Apparition Room where the emergency portkey had deposited him. Still and unmoving he looked like a corpse laid out for the world to bemoan, frozen in time, sickly pale and drenched in blood as he was.

At least the majority of the blood was likely to be his own, Severus thought with an odd sense of detachment. It would have been too much to ask for, that for once another but Potter should end up unconscious and in need of intensive medical care. After all these years he was still like a suicidal toddler, always looking for the next opportunity to off himself in a new, inventive way.

Hopefully his state was no indicator to Draco's and Blaise's wellbeing. If his past adventures were anything to go by, Potter's companions seemed to either survive their moronic escapades relatively unscathed or not at all and Severus did not even want to imagine the emotional backlash should the two young snakes belong into the latter category this time. It would be a loss that would shatter their parents, even Amalyne.  
Severus himself was fond for the boys in his own way. He had watched them grow, tried to encourage their potential beyond the petty ambitions of their parents. And now that the fragile seedlings were finally just starting to thrive…

His hands twitched into fists for a second, the ghost of a complicated, pinched expression flashing over his face, gone before it could ripen into something more defined.  
He had to remind himself insistently that there was no reason to expect they had come to any harm and Severus refused to envision chimeras everywhere. Besides, the fact remained that whether his godson and his fiancé were dead, unharmed or anything in between, there was nothing he could do for them now; they were far out of his reach.

Unlike Potter, who was very much present and hurt and in desperate need of help. And whom Severus had sworn to keep safe as a promise to Dumbledore and Lily… and to himself.

Even though a part of him still twinged like an old scar in the first chill of the coming winter when he looked at the boy. Especially when his eyes were turned or closed and he seemed like the image of the one man Severus had always abhorred above all others. There was so much to dislike there: The boy had such an annoying, _gryffindorish_ hero complex, and he refused to bow to authorities out of principle and wouldn't _think_ of consequences at all. Just look at him now… Wasn't he Potter's brat, truly, in this if nothing else?

But Severus had to admit that he was also compassionate and hateful of injustice and bullying in a way that his father had never been. He had broken into the boy's mind, had seen his most disturbing, most secret memories. Severus knew him, in a way that none of his friends did. And he knew that the boy was also and irrefutably Lily's son.

Perhaps he was even more than his parents combined: forgiving, where they hadn't been, accepting and understanding of how people could be swept along by the wrong ideals and beliefs, when even his righteous mother had never quite forgiven Severus for calling her a mudblood, for befriending the conservative purebloods of Slytherin House, _his_ house, and allowing them to shape his beliefs.

Reflexively, Severus grabbed the recalcitrant thought that reeked of regret and anger, oozed grief and pain and he maliciously squished it, the way he had so often done during the past sixteen years; silently infuriated when it took more effort than it used to.

But, he reminded himself, it was of no use to think of Lily like this, to remember her like that, distant and upset with her former friend; No use in agonizing over it… there was nothing to change. She was dead, put into the past tense with nothing more than two magic words and the rift between them would stay open and gaping forever.

Severus was too much of a pragmatist, too much of a pessimist to truly believe in some form of afterlife where the dead might be aware of the living, could be present to watch or guide or guard…  
No, he was certain that Lily would never know of his treatment of her child, never see… and thus it should be of no consequence whether Severus liked her son or not, whether he was fair to him or taught him to deal with all the cruelty of the world instead. The boy himself probably didn't care much either way and he was still an annoying, thoughtless brat. Rash to act and slow to learn.

Indeed. Where Potter was concerned, it should have only ever been Severus' duty to do what must be done and nothing more; to keep him alive and free. Of course the boy had done nothing to merit the treatment he had endured in his life, didn't deserved the kind of prison the Malfoys and Zabinis wanted to enclose him in. That still didn't mean that Severus should care about his happiness as well.

Yet the memories of the boy's childhood were still churning in Severus' mind, infecting every thought that touched on Potter's existence with a nameless feeling that he didn't much care for. Guilt perhaps, because he hadn't spoken up, hadn't helped or put a stop to the abuse and had even unwittingly tried to force him back into that life by advocating his expulsion every chance he got. Or, and perhaps more likely, the grudging acknowledgement of a strong mind that wouldn't allow life to break it, whatever it threw at him.

Just like Severus himself, and yet so very, very different. Pecause unlike the younger Gryffindor, Severus had allowed life to form him.

Not that flying upwind had helped him any, considering his pitiful appearance, and now he would depend on the help of someone experienced in weathering out storms to get him out.

Severus sighed and cast a quick tempus, frowning in displeasure when he noticed that he had been standing around idly for a couple of minutes when in truth he didn't have the time to analyse Potter and his view of him: Soon Narcissa and Amalyne would take notice of Damask Tower's visitors and there was still a lot to do and scant time.

With a flounce and a flick of his wand Severus leapt into action, throwing off his light summer coat and sending it off to the hallstand. When he turned to face his young charge again, his mind was already buzzing: analysing the situation, compiling a detailed list of all that had to be taken care of, prioritising and weighing…

* * *

Severus was pleased to find that Damask Tower – a safe house that had been in the possession of the Zabini family for a couple of centuries now – was fairly easy to defend, even against the few people that might manage to set foot into it against all odds. Not that he meant to actually let Amalyne and Narcissa lay siege to him here. He would allow them to enter, at his own leisure of course.  
From the outside, the isolated building had more similarities with an oversized menhir than a tower, the smoothed stone surface unbroken by any cracks, windows or doors, nothing that would leave purchase for even the sturdiest of plants to grow.  
Consequently, any intruder – even if they somehow managed to circumvent the Fidelius charm's protection that had been installed a few years earlier – would still have to fly to the top of it, fight their way through the poisonous Damask Roses planted on the entirety of the top level, and find the only existing entrance cleverly hidden in between the ridiculously enormous thorns. As the roses behaved rather like devil snares and were resistant to many kinds of magic, and with the entrance guarded by a gargoyle statue enchanted to come to life as soon as any living being came close, such an endeavour would require more than the usual amount of stubbornness and skill.

Of course that would neither hold Narcissa and Amalyne back, nor detain them significantly as they were keyed into the wards.

It were the inner defences, the dark wizard planned to exploit: there were seven floors to cross until one could expect to corner the Tower's inhabitants in their last available refuge. A dangerous undertaking with every level built to offer ample coverage for any potential defenders while leaving intruders open for attack: each floor consisted of a single room, and could be reached only via narrow corkscrew staircases, which would force all invaders to enter one by one and make it almost impossible for them to evade hexes and curses flung their way.

All of that wasn't even mentioning the multitude of inventive and nasty little traps generations of sadistic Zabinis had amassed practically everywhere, or the small assortment of handy portkeys waiting in several hidden places for emergency evacuations.

Fortunately, Amalyne had keyed in Severus to all the wards as per Lucius' wishes. Even after the war and all the smaller and greater betrayals during it, there was little doubt that Severus remained the only person outside of the family whom the paranoid Malfoy patriarch trusted with his son and heir's protection.  
Of course neither Lucius nor Amalyne could have suspected that the decision to include him might come back to haunt them later on. But thanks to their trust, Severus found it neither strenuous nor terribly time consuming to add a few surprises of his own to the tower's strong defences – small tricks and traps that would not harm, but hopefully detain Amalyne and Narcissa for a while once they arrived; and they would, of that there was no doubt.

They were traditionalists, proud purebloods, and powerful witches. But above all else, they were mothers and after realising that one of their sons' emergency portkeys had been activated there would be only one thing on their mind: the instinctive fear of a parent for their child.

It was beyond him, how neither Draco nor Blaise had considered that possibility.

Obviously the recent development had already taken a deeper strain on the two families than Severus had expected, if the two brats truly believed their mothers had nothing better to do than to go after Potter, when they didn't even know whether their sons were alive to claim him.

Fortunately after teaching more years of dull-witted students than he cared to remember, Severus was rather used to handling the glaring mistakes of thoughtless children and thus he had left a curt letter for the two women to find in the Apparition Room in order to alleviate the most pressing concerns and hopefully direct their attention to Italy.

Of course, he had little hope of the latter to actually happen: once the two formidable women _did_ realise that their sons were indeed still breathing and relatively well, Potter and he wouldn't stay undisturbed for long. Hence the traps.  
And just to be sure, Severus levitated his battered charge to the one place that was the most difficult to reach in the entire tower: the ground floor.

It was an arduous endeavour with the boy still caught in the stasis spell, stiff and frozen in an outstretched position that was extremely inconvenient for levitating down overly narrow spiral staircases, but with a calm hand and a few precautionary cushioning charms Severus and Potter finally reached the lowest level barely half an hour after his arrival.

Wide and spacious, the room's corners and edges were swathed in deep shadows, the feint morning light still too weak to lend it any significant illumination and the quickly cast Lumos insufficient to reach the walls.  
Carefully Severus let his eyes sift through the darkness, searching for movement, for traps, for even a hint of something suspicious. But after a few moments of pure silence, he relaxed minutely and set his charge gently down on the wooden floor. Whipping his now free wand at a fireplace on the far side of the room, he let a burst of flames explode from the sooted thing, the flickering fire reaching out warmly.  
With a few more gestures and sweeps a couple of candelabras sprung to life as well, spreading their light over a room grand and luxurious enough to make Severus want to sneer.

It was circular – as all the rooms in the tower were – and obviously fitted out to host some fastidious guests comfortably for some time. A group of stiff, high-backed armchairs lounged in front of the now roaring fire, dark green velvet and rich plum wood, the delicately carved bases clawing and burying themselves deeply into the carpet beneath. Persian. A pale and exotic thing of silk with a complex pattern of deeply intertwined greens and blues, cream and grey, and with so many knots that Severus dearly hoped that magic had been involved in its fabrication. Such a bovine work he wouldn't even wish on his worst enemy, much less House-Elves who at least had their uses in contrast to some of their masters.

With a disdainful snort, Severus turned away, letting his gaze flitter swiftly over the rest of the room's interior, ensuring that nothing had been changed since he had been here last, that no one had desecrated this refuge.

But everything was as he remembered it. The walls were lined with book shelves and show-cases holding magical artefacts, stretching up to the high ceiling and intermitted only by a couple of heavy wooden doors and several magical windows that showed the view from the top of the tower: a sea of trees reaching far into every cardinal direction with only a few feint groups of lights that shimmered in the distance and marked the closest muggle cities. Nothing had been moved and only the absence of dust or dirt hinted at the regularly visiting House Elves.

The doors themselves lead to rooms that could only exist due to the clever usage of wizarding space: a kitchen and ever-full pantry, two bathrooms, several bedrooms… Severus knew what hid behind each of them even though they were currently closed, as he had been given the full tour not so long a time ago.

For a moment he considered barricading himself and Potter in one of the bedrooms, but in all honesty he didn't want to leave the main hall, didn't think it wise to leave the staircase out of his sight. When Amalyne or Narcissa came, he wanted to be able to take the initiative instead of waiting for them to corner him like a rabbit in its hole.

In the end Severus floated one of the beds to a spot behind the staircase, such that he would be able to see (and attack) the legs of any intruder long before they could ever hope to notice, let alone target him.

Only once he was sure that he could defend himself and his charge, did he let his attention focus solely on Potter, levitating him carefully onto the soft mattress where he came to lie in an odd position like a statue displaced from its original spot, still frozen from the stasis spell as he was.

He looked disturbingly frail against the white linen of the bed sheets, his skin far too pale and thin, like brittle parchment.  
Severus stood entirely still, an ever so slight narrowing of his eyes and a miniscule tightening around his thin lips all that he allowed himself as he assessed the younger wizard's state from a safe distance, so as not to disturb the delicate stasis spell. Once undone, he suspected, there wouldn't be much time to act before the boy would breathe his last. The pallor of his skin, the bluish tint of his lips, and the darkly glistening patches on the back and front of the odd robe he wore, told him as much and had Severus forehandedly uncorking a healing and a blood replenishing potion. Those should stabilize him enough to allow for some deeper diagnostics.

At least the injury in his abdomen seemed to be very low and while still potentially lethal, stomach wounds like these often missed any organs vital enough to kill quickly. What was a messy, slow and painful death for a muggle, gave magic wielders all the time needed to heal themselves.

Thoughtfully, Severus leaned back, his eyes fixed on the bloody, torn robe hiding the boy's wounds from his view. If this was his only injury, and if it was as low as he suspected it to be, why then was Potter in such a dire state? The Vykélari submissive's magic alone should have been enough to heal him before he fell unconscious… hell, the accidental magic of far lesser wizards was often enough to stabilize their condition even after receiving grievous, non-magical wounds. And if his state wasn't critical, he wouldn't have been portkeyed to safety and put in a temporal stasis.

So why hadn't Potter's magic taken care of his injury? Severus pursed his lips and shifted closer, wondering whether there had perhaps been a trauma dire enough to render the boy unconscious. However, there seemed to be no bruising to his head, no abrasions and no blood… Internal bleeding then? But that should still have given the Vykélari's magic the few seconds it needed to act.  
Maybe his mind had been weakened and held under the control of another, that might explain… Slowly Severus shook his head. If Potter had been under his kidnapper's control so entirely as to leave him unable to heal himself from a life-threatening injury, there would hardly have been any need at all to hurt him in the first place.

Which left another possibility: logic dictated that if Potter had had the time to act but hadn't done so, then he must have been unable to. And if it wasn't his mind that had been incapacitated, then it must have been his magic. Severus wasn't well-read in regards to Vykélari, but he would indeed be very astonished if dominants like Lucius hadn't found some way to gain the upper hand over the magically more powerful submissives. How else would they have successfully oppressed their other halves for centuries?  
So. In all likelihood, the boy's magic was somehow affected.

Or he had been cursed with something more powerful than his own magic.

Whatever it was, for now Severus would have to concentrate on simply stabilizing the boy and later procure the needed information…

With a displeased huff, he curled his long fingers around his wand and uttered a sharp, clear Finite Incantatum.

Immediately Potter's form, frozen in the same position in which the stasis spell had caught him, slackened, sinking into the soft mattress. His chest moved with the first breath he had taken in almost an hour, a small fluttering like from a dying chicklet.

Severus took in the change with a sharp frown and as soon as the last traces of the stasis spell were gone, his wand began its complex dance. A few fast swishes and the mattress started to bend, bringing the boy into an almost sitting position while tilting his head back. The thin blue cloak he wore tore along its every seam to bare the boy's pale, blood covered torso and the ugly, gaping injury in his stomach.

Severus grimaced at the sight. He would have liked to start on closing the wound immediately but without the blood replenishing potion in his system Potter's organs might fail before he had finished; and the healing potion would hopefully do its part to make sure the new blood would stay within Potter.

Quickly he fixated his patient to the mattress, stripes of the fine bed linen tearing themselves out and wrapping around the boy's forehead, arms and chest. While they tied themselves off with neat knots, Severus floated a thin tube out of his bag.

Feeding tubes like these were admittedly originally a muggle invention, but they had drastically improved the care for unconscious patients in St. Mungo's during the last couple of decades. Liquids couldn't be teleported, especially not into the stomach of a patient whose magic was out of control; and it was quite awkward and time consuming to magically close off the windpipe and open the oesophagus for seconds at a time, which only left the rectum and… suffice to say, Severus was rather glad for feeding tubes.

At least, being barely a millimetre thick with a magically enlarged centre, and able to find their own way, the wizarding version was rather superior to its muggle model.

Severus had applied it before, when assisting Poppy in the Hospital Wing, and so he had little difficulty to feed the tube through Potters nose all the way down into the stomach and pour the potions into the enlarged ending.

The empty bottles were flung aside carelessly, clinging loudly as they hit the ground and rolled away and Severus immediately turned towards the wound in Potter's abdomen. The cleanly cut edges were raised just a little bit, the skin around them smeared red from blood.

At least it seemed that Severus' earlier assessment had been correct: the wound was low, lower even than he had thought. And that was good, heartening indeed.

Still, there could be more damage hidden beneath the scraped and bruised skin, damage that might even be fatal if not healed in time… therefore, without waiting for the potions to take effect, Severus let his wand fly over the boy's body, intricate gestures weaving a net of light that hovered for a moment above Potter, adapting to his outstretched form. Upon touching skin, the diagnostic spell would reflect the hurts and injuries the boy had suffered.  
Severus lowered it gently, care and precision in each movement, until it settled like a blanket on his charge, and then…

Severus' eyes narrowed in alarm, his hands frozen over the Gryffindor's prone form as he watched the spell's delicate network rupture, the tatters flying away like the shreds of a torn spider web in a gust of wind, before dissolving entirely.

Now, Severus Snape had been called many a vile thing in his life, but not once a fool. His spellwork had been flawless as always, as were the potions, and he knew that it was impossible for there to have been any unwanted interactions between the two.  
Even in the very unlikely case that Severus had made a grievous mistake, the spell would not have been destroyed like that, it would have yielded implausible, faulty results or perhaps even injured Potter… it wouldn't have just ceased to exist!

No, this was an effect similar to that of powerful magical beings able to repulse weaker charms cast at them. Which meant that it wasn't his doing, but Potter's.

Sure enough a moment later the boy started to convulse, his chest heaving with wet, violent coughing, his body shaking with tremors. Severus surged forward, cutting the bindings and grabbing Potters shoulders to turn him onto his side and not a moment too soon: he had just managed to turn the boy's head safely away when the potions Severus had fed him seconds earlier made an entirely disgusting reappearance, splattering all over the pristine bed sheets.

This time, Severus did sneer, though he didn't bother with useless swearing, instead holding his charge in place throughout his violent retching and shaking so that the vomit would not end up choking him, all the while wondering what the hell he was supposed to do if Potter was fighting off the magic that he might use to help him.

As suddenly as it had started it was over and the boy went lax again, too quickly for it to mean anything even remotely good, and Severus' fingers flittered to his pulse point, pressing down, pressing harder when there was nothing to be found aside from clammy, sweaty skin.

Later, much later, when Severus would have the time to process all that happened that evening, he would wonder over the way that, in that moment, his heart began trying to pummel its way through his throat, the way his smooth movements grew erratic and his skin cold and so slick with sweat that his grip around his wand almost faltered. He would wonder and not want to acknowledge and try without much success to let the matter rest where it wouldn't cause him discomfort.

But now, even while fear coursed through his body, his mind still worked a mile a minute, going off on a dozen different tangents at once.

He knew that muggles had ways of reviving people, of keeping them alive even without magic; he knew that he had to press down on the ribcage above the heart to more or less pump it manually and then breathe for him. He knew that, having lived with and around muggles during his childhood and the holidays as a teenager, but he didn't know how it worked, didn't know how forceful he had to be to make the heart pump but keep the ribs from breaking – didn't know that it would all but require the ribs to break for it to be really effective.  
He couldn't conceive of a way to get air into the boy that wasn't entirely ludicrous. If he breathed his own air into him, wouldn't that be stale and deprived of Oxygen already?  
And would the blood still remaining within the battered body even suffice to keep him alive?

He had no idea how it would work, but he swore he would learn after this was over. There shouldn't be anything a muggle could do that he couldn't!

In the meantime Potter was still not breathing and Severus knew if he used his own magic or poured more potions into him, the boy would, for whatever reason, just further exhaust his own magic trying to get the foreign stuff out until he reached a level of magical exhaustion from which there was no return (Severus refused to accept the possibility that that might have already happened). Hell, if the boy's own magic wasn't so depleted, being a Vykélari he could probably just heal himself even while unconscious…

Time was running out. Nerves died quickly if deprived of oxygen, Severus knew, and within two minutes, the boy's brain would start dying.  
Quickly he cast a series of powerful cooling charms on the room until his breath congealed in the freezing air and his skin broke out in goose bumps. If he could get Potter's body temperature to drop quickly, it should considerably slow the process down. Hadn't Pomfrey once revived a Hufflepuff girl that had one winter fallen into the Great Lake, after twenty minutes without any lasting damage?

Still, the Mediwitch had been able to use magic then which didn't seem to be possible now… relentlessly Severus' eyes flitted over the room and its magical artefacts in search of something, anything that might help… stopping only when they encountered a speck of gold.

It was nothing of importance, only one of a set of golden goblets resting in a pretentious showcase, but it immediately brought to mind the one kind of magic that Potter might still accept, even when he rejected everything else: sweet, natural magic, unbiased and pure like untouched snow. The fact that his body had tolerated the potions (which to a large part derived their power from the natural magic of plants and animals) far longer than they had Severus' spell indicated it.

Vykélari had a strong, a unique connection to natural magic, everyone knew that, and purebloods even had the handy habit of bottling it, savouring it like rare Elf Vine. He was sure Amalyne, being as conceited and spoiled as she was, would have quite a few bottles lying around, just in case that a hapless guest should have to be impressed.  
Or in the unlikely case that someone managed to prove the murder of one of her husbands and she had to spend some years in her safe house…

"Accio Hesperides' Nectar!" He bellowed, pointing his wand towards the pantry.

Loud rattling and clinking broke the heavy silence as almost two dozen bottles of the expensive brew tore themselves from their shelves to rush towards the dark wizard. Like a flock of birds they came flying, the slender golden bodies gleaming unnaturally bright in the dim light of the candles.

Severus caught them with a flurry of nimble wand gestures, directing the lot of them to crowd over the boy's outstretched body. Another flick and they turned upside down and Severus grabbed the next best bottle and tore out the stopper. Gurgling, the viscous liquid poured from the bottle and splashed against the boy's pale sternum. Thick golden drops sprayed over his chest, rivulets ran over his side to drench his torn clothing and the bed sheets, or flowing down to his stomach and even into the wound, washing away and mixing with the harsh red smears of blood.

Severus allowed it, he could worry about infections later if (when!) the boy's heart was beating again. But it wasn't. God be damned it wasn't!  
"Come on _Potter_ ," he snarled, meaning it as the swearword he always used it as, even while he opened another bottle and emptied it over the boy's head. Let it run into his mouth, his ears, his nose and the tube in it! If Potter started choking on it that was so very fine with Severus because it meant the darn idiot was capable of choking! "You stubborn, foolish, annoying, good-for-nothing…"

He raised his hand to slap him, more because he felt like it than out of the belief it might cause a miraculous revival, and surely it couldn't make it any worse. But then Severus stopped dead. Within the blink of an eye the syrupy nectar smeared all over Potter's skin had lost its lustrous gleam, as if something had sucked the colour out of it, leaving a thick, richly yellow fluid that was not unlike mango juice in place of the liquefied gold that it had been.

Even while he stared, the pitiful rests of the nectar in the bottle above Potter's head drew languidly together, before sending off a perfectly formed drop on a free fall towards a pale nose. It splashed against the bridge of it, painting it golden and sending off a colourful spray to dot the cheeks with odd little freckles.  
But within seconds the blots drew together like the leaves of a mimosa, the colour and the light sucked away and into the skin beneath.

It was actually working: Potter was pulling the magic from the nectar!

Severus didn't lose any more time, flicking his wand at the mattress to turn it into a narrow tub right beneath Potter's body. Then he tore all the stops from the remaining bottles, letting the golden liquid drench the boy entirely, hoping it would be enough.

Seconds passed like an eternity in hell and Severus clawed his fingers into the tub's rim until his knuckles were white, because the trembling was worse.  
He was already half convinced that it hadn't worked, that he _had killed Lily's son…_

That thought almost wrung all breath out of him and Severus closed his eyes and let his straggly hair fall into his face. Thus he missed as a translucent wave of soft light rose from the still body, like tendrils of a shapeless ghost moving within, gliding through the boy's head, sinking into his forehead and cheek. The unhealthily pale eyelids fluttered as it passed and moved through his throat and into his chest, glowing as it surfaced briefly over a collarbone before diving again.  
As the younger wizard's heart jumped to life again and his chest heaved with a sudden intake of much needed breath, Severus' eyes snapped open, widening as he saw light congealing in the gaping cut, not enough to close it or to even begin healing, but enough to let a steady heartbeat echo through the aorta in his stomach, visible in the rhythmic pulsing of the skin above his belly button.

Severus swallowed drily, his eyes swerving to the empty bottles of Hesperide's Nectar. He needed more of that stuff. And then he needed to find out what the hell had happened.

* * *

Dawn was close, the faintest sheen of paleness was just crawling across the distant horizon. It was still too weak to lend the forest she had apparated to any significant illumination, but Amalyne knew that it wouldn't take long now.

Perhaps half an hour and the softest orange glow would bleed into the blue, giving rise to a transformation like the birth of an entirely new world: oppressive and hostile shadows would turn into harmless wood and bark, the sounds of nameless enemies moving in the darkness revealing themselves to be nothing more than wind and animals prowling through the scrub and boughs. Blades of grass and millions of leaves and wild flowers would shed the dull greyness clinging to them like tar and burst into colours and the soft smells of moss and wood and leaves and earths would thicken in the soon warming air.

But for now everything was still smothered in that inky blackness, the dense foliage refusing any of the light the early summer's morning brought.

Amalyne welcomed the crisp cool and quiet, felt it sharpening her hearing, her very awareness, the reduced impressions of her other senses heightening her alertness until she felt that every single thought was precise and clear. It broke her fear and worry down to a manageable level so that she could look at her family's safe house with a cool head while she waited for Narcissa to arrive, instead of trying to barge in without so much as ascertaining that it was still uncompromised.

Damask Tower, however, looked like she imagined it always had. Unmoved by time, unmarred by nature's forces or any scuffle it had seen since its building countless centuries ago; a solid rock in a softly moving sea of densely packed trees and shrubs that surged and rippled with the wind.

And Amalyne knew for sure that its wards and protection spells were still unbroken. As Damask Tower's lady and secret keeper of the Fidelius Charm keeping it hidden, she was able to feel the powerful magic still pulsing through the earth and air, humming through her veins invigoratingly, and she knew that there had not been a forced entry, the wards were still fully intact.

And yet, it wasn't the integrity of her safe house that Amalyne was concerned with. God no; she already knew someone was in there, because one of the portkeys of her son and future son-in-law had been activated. It was the question of who it was, and in what condition that tore through her mind like a whirlwind of razor blades; scarring fears that were bound to leave some form of neurosis like the mementos of a battle.

Oh yes, this was a nightmare come true, a possibility that Amalyne had naively discarded after the war, after the fighting was mostly over. There never should have been a need for Draco or Blaise to use the emergency portkeys, never again.

If only both portkeys had been activated, she wouldn't have worried so much, would simply have assumed that the boys had been faced with some attacker, some vengeful Death Eater on the run, and had to escape from an ugly situation.

But it hadn't been both portkeys. And they were small things, the charm resting only on the inner surface of the bracelets, on a small plate that would stick to the skin. They were designed to only be able to transport a single human being…  
Draco and Blaise had been meant to stay in the mansion with Potter, to stay together…

What could have happened for only one of them to evacuate? Who could have found the boys, found out they were even in Italy? Who could have entered Lanai manor and how and why? Was it due to Potter and his inheritance or some self-proclaimed revenger infuriated that Draco had so recently been acquitted?

And why, why in Medea's name had only the one portkey been activated? What atrocity could have taken place that could have made Blaise abandon Draco or the other way round – or had the portkey automatically activated due to its bearer being wounded too badly?  
Did the other not escape? Not survive? Was it Blaise (please, oh please let it be Blaise) they would find in the entrance room of Damask Tower?

A quiet pop announced Narcissa's sudden arrival to Amalyne's left, her wand tensely clutched in one white hand, the other awkwardly closed around her son's Firebolt while a basket was dangling from the crook of her arm. It would contain Potions and salves mostly. Healing potions, blood replenishing potions, pain potions, tonics against burns and poisons and whatever else. Things that they might need but hopefully wouldn't.

The pale witch herself was in an unusually dishevelled state and Amalyne took her in with harsh, unflinching eyes, the hastily donned trousers of fine dragon leather that would protect her from carelessly pricking herself on the Damask Roses, the pale blue linen shirt, wrinkled under a grey, tightly fitted vest, also of leather.  
Her hands were trembling, her eyes held a wildness and desperation that Amalyne herself had never seen there before and yet she was still insufferably sophisticated and composed, far too stiff and … by Medea, Amalyne couldn't help the sliver of hate that took root in her chest at this very moment, even though Narcissa had never done her any kind of wrong, had been a dear friend for a very long while… even so she had to hate her because… because it might just be the Malfoy's fault that this had happened at all and it might just be Draco that had been portkeyed to safety and not her own son.

Amalyne grit her teeth, her hands twitching into fists as she returned her gaze to Damask Tower.

There was no denying it. One of the emergency portkeys that Blaise had had manufactured for him and Draco had been activated, just the one. Whatever had happened, only one of their sons had made it out of it, made it to safety and now here they stood: two friends, two mothers secretly – cruelly – hoping that it was the other woman who would have her life shattered like a crystal ball smashed into a million sharp, cutting pieces smeared with sticky devastation – painful to look at, dangerous to even try to mend, leaving behind an unsalvageable mess that one would be well advised to just get rid of and bury in some graveyard of memories and ruined existences. And try to go on.

But if it was Blaise…

"Have you…?" Narcissa's voice was unusually thick and Amalyne minutely shook her head before remembering how neither of them could bear to look at the other right then.

"No." She hadn't checked who they would find, even though she had desperately wanted to, just so that no one would be there to see her shatter in case it wasn't Blaise.  
But … "The wards won't allow location or detection charms. For safety reasons."

The pale witch swallowed audibly, the sound grotesquely loud in the silence of the forest. Ugly.  
"Let us go then…"

And so they did.

* * *

They made their way to the top of the tower in heavy silence, heading directly for the single small spot of the platform that was clear of plants. The lush fragrance of Damask Roses greeted them as they drew closer, cloyingly sweet like honey, and thin twigs reached for their bodies like horrible grasping hands, sharp thorns already dripping with sizzling poison in anticipation of a rich meal.

But as soon as the wards pulsed with recognition the roses were forced to retreat, a jerking and writhing mass of rustling leaves and creaking twigs.

Twitching legs of dying spiders.

A path opened directly in front of them, not more than half a metre wide, revealing at its very end the towering statue of the enormous gargoyle, glaring at them from a tall, slender socle that was half overgrown with thorny twines and dark red blooms.

It sat enthroned there like a royal demon holding court, exuding darkness and malicious power. Or rather, a caricature of such a being: a failed attempt at crossbreeding of a human with a dragon, a horrifically distorted amalgamation of two forms that shouldn't mix.

Most grotesque of it all was the misshapen head, with the harsh contours of a dragon that someone had forcefully pressed into the form of an ape skull. Too short was it, too broad; but covered with scales and with longer and sharper teeth than even a baboon possessed. It displayed them well too, it's large mouth frozen in a fearsome, never-ending snarl.

The rest of its body might have been called graceful if it wasn't so strangely disproportioned, promising a lethal agility as soon as the gargoyle awoke. The beast had obviously been manufactured to be the perfect predator, with a sleek body and muscles that were lean enough to be fast and yet strong enough to be a force to be reckoned with.

For now it crouched as if it wanted to climb down from its pedestal, the claws of one large hand already deeply embedded in the front side, and its long, spike covered dragon-tail wound around the stone as if to stabilise itself during its descend.  
In truth, both the tail and the massive paw were part of the locks of the entrance door that was hidden in the socle. Not a crevice could be seen but it was there, waiting to open for those who could prove their right of access.

There the two women were headed, Narcissa following Amalyne, tense and apprehensive, past the roses that were still quivering with the desire to attack them. It made Narcissa's already strained nerves fray more and more beneath her near perfect mask until she felt as if she was disintegrating from the inside, as if there was a black hole beneath her feet that tore bits and pieces out of her soul into its depths, leaving only a shell behind like a hollow porcelain doll.

Would that she could reach for her friend's hand, or at least share a few comforting words… but they were both alone in this nightmare. And in truth Narcissa would not have known how to approach the other. Weakness was not something that was acceptable in their world.

So instead she passively watched her friend hesitate and almost falter without uttering even one supportive word, and for a moment Narcissa imagined the silence freezing between them, layers of ice on a frozen lake, and Amalyne drowning in the dark depths beneath her. Drowning in silence. While she was freezing to death in it.

The vision broke as the black woman cleared her throat, perhaps aware of the observation, and suddenly Narcissa felt overcome with the surrealism of it all, the absurdity. What were they doing, acting like grudging allies or rather like enemies under a ceasefire, as if a friendship that had been forged over decades with trust and goodwill and affection could break so easily, was worth so little?  
Whatever they would find down there, one of them would need the other's support and help and… almost more than she was afraid of what they would find, Narcissa was terrified of doing it alone.

"'Lyn?" The familiar pet name left her lips before she knew it, her voice unusually rough but Narcissa didn't repeat herself in a useless attempt at seeming stronger and saving face.

Amalyne had stopped, tipping her head just so to indicate that she was listening. But she hadn't turned and whether it was to spare her friend the indignity of being seen so weak, or because her own mask was crumbling, Narcissa couldn't say.

"Lyn, if…" _if we do not find your boy down there, I'll be there for you…_  
Narcissa wanted to say the words, dearly wanted to. But comfort offered so brashly could only be rejected by someone as prideful as the Black Widow.

She licked her dry lips. "I may need you." She said instead. _And if I don't, you will need me instead._

With a heavy sigh Amalyne turned around to face her friend, her eyes black in the darkness, unfathomable onyxes. There was a harsh strain around her full lips and for a moment Narcissa almost expected some jibe, some malicious mockery.

She couldn't help the tiny, surprised flinch as clammy fingers closed around her own, squeezing gently.

Amalyne blinked rapidly a few times, regarding her as if she had never seen her before, as if she wasn't quite sure how she should handle this alien being. The silence stretched between them, thin and taut until the dark woman finally settled for an awkward "They may both not even be down there."

It was very unlikely. With the wards still unbroken the only ones who could have entered were Severus and the bearers of the emergency portkeys. As the former had retreated to Spinner's End and Narcissa knew that her son and son-in-law never took off the invisible bracelets, she didn't allow herself to entertain the hope that it might all be some cosmic misunderstanding.  
Even if someone else had acquired a portkey, they could only have done so by force. And why would any sane wizard want to steal a portkey to the middle of nowhere?

Still Narcissa swallowed down the acidic words. There was no need to voice what both of them knew to be true.

"Come now." Amalyne murmured lowly, averting her eyes as if ashamed of her words. Squeezing her friend's hand once more, she turned and walked the last few steps towards the statue, Narcissa following with only a moment of hesitation.

Coming to stand before the socle, the dark witch grasped onto the gargoyle's massive paw to pull herself up on her tiptoes and steady her stance. Quickly she reached for the beast's enormous jaws and pricked the tip of one long finger on a sharp fang, sharper than stone had any right to be.  
The upwelling blood she smeared onto the curled tongue of the snarling statue, and in the darkness didn't see the similar stain further down its throat.

A mere moment later the gargoyle rose from its crouched position and Amalyne fell back and retreated a few steps. Intently the two women watched as the claws of its paw tore themselves away from the hidden door and its long dragon-tail uncurled from the socle, slithering back into the darkness. Clefts appeared in the previously seamless rock and a narrow but tall door slid open with the sound of stone grating upon stone, revealing a narrow staircase spiralling ever downward, illuminated by a flickering orange glow as if from dozen of candles.

Tense and silent, Narcissa followed her friend into the tower, again and again having to remind herself not to tighten the grip on her wand too much lest her wrist became too stiff for good spellwork. With every step she became more nauseous and dizzy with anxiousness as her eyes searched in vain for any hint of pale skin and blonde hair.

However, due to the staircase the circular room revealed itself only bit by bit to their eyes, more so as Amalyne seemed intent on being cautious, proceeding slowly with her wand at the ready.

Around her tall frame, Narcissa couldn't see very well, and nothing of importance, and it was maddening.  
She could only catch hints of elaborately carved broom cupboards with beautiful inlays of colourful singing birds; and stiff storage benches with moss green velvet cushions, the drawers she knew would be holding an assortment of explosive potions, one or two spare wands and other things that might be used for defence. There were decorative side tables with colourful flower bouquets frozen in stasis and little snake statuettes that were in fact blood triggered portkeys.

But. There was no sign of life whatsoever.

"What is…" Narcissa frowned in confusion. "Where are they?"

Amalyne didn't answer. As if frozen she stood there staring at the clothing racks on the other side of the room. They were empty apart of one raven-black coat that the both of them knew only too well.

Narcissa shook her head in disbelief. "What… Severus?"

It made no sense at all! Severus had gone to Spinner's End. After that horrible meeting that last morning, during which Lucius had lost his composure and insulted Draco so badly.  
Narcissa still remembered vividly how harsh Severus' eyes had been as he told his friend just how much he disapproved of his behaviour. But even though Narcissa could truly empathise – she herself was still angry because of it, Draco was her son after all and she could vividly remember his crestfallen expression… even so, Lucius was also her husband; a man who had had to shoulder far too much stress and worries lately.  
Of course that didn't excuse his behaviour, but in time Draco would understand and forgive his father, even if Narcissa had to mediate between her family for a while.

As for Lucius, predictably his pride hadn't let him react kindly to his friend's reproach, especially since Severus was the younger of the two of them, had always been the one to follow quietly instead of lead.

They had argued over Draco and Blaise… and of course over Potter. The potions master had made no secret of how foolish he thought Lucius' plan to bind the submissive to their family in order to secure their standing and protect himself from prosecution.  
It was because he was a halfblood, Narcissa told herself, he didn't understand the significance of having a submissive in the family because he was often unaware of the oldest, most deeply ingrained pure blood traditions. No light or dark wizard would underestimate the force the Zabini and Malfoy families would become due to Potter's power bound and wielded by both their heirs.  
And Potter himself had to bow, even the Boy-Who-Lived would be unable to squirm free with the life debt he owed Narcissa tying him securely.

Unable to see reason, Severus had returned home.

Of course this night they had sent him a note as soon as they had been informed of the portkey's activation, just before Amalyne and Narcissa had departed for Damask Tower. Still, there was simply no possibility that he had arrived before them. He couldn't have, except… except if he had learned that their sons had gotten into trouble before the portkey had been activated in the first place.

Quickly the two women rushed down the rest of the stairs, whirling around, their eyes searching the room. But there was no sign that Severus was anywhere near. He must have retreated deeper into the tower. With that thought Narcissa turned towards the staircases.

That's when she detected it. A single sheet of paper hovering directly above the stairs leading to the level below them. With a few steps Narcissa crossed the room and snatched the letter out of the air. Quickly she unfolded it, her gaze flickering to the signature, drawn by the familiar elegant curves. Indeed, it was Severus' writing.

As Amalyne came up beside her, Narcissa started to read out loud.

" _As far as I know your sons are still in Italy and well._ "

For a moment Narcissa felt her knees go weak. She could have sunken to the ground as the heavy tenseness fled from her limbs. It was as if someone had cut a too tightly laced corset from her body after she had worn it for years, only to realise that she didn't have the strength to keep herself upright on her own. But by Merlin, each breath was free and sweet, because her son was alive!

Next to her, Amalyne was chafing with impatience and with little hesitation she ripped the paper out of Narcissa's hands and continued reading herself. Her voice had regained its so familiar strength, the factual determination and it was soothing to hear.

" _As far as I know your sons are still in Italy and well. Potter is the one that used the portkey._ "

Amalyne cursed. "Potter! Of course, damn it…" and then more quietly to herself "I should have suspected…"

Narcissa frowned deeply and pursed her lips. She hadn't thought of the boy at all. Of course if Potter had somehow been injured or at danger, they couldn't have all evacuated…

Yet something was nagging at her still: Potter was valuable for them, invaluable really, and she couldn't quite believe that neither Blaise or Draco had tried to accompany him and make sure he wasn't claimed by someone else, or that he fled and told some of his fanatic followers ridiculous horror stories about his treatment at the hands of former Death Eaters… something else was afoot here, something dire, just as Amalyne confirmed as she read out the rest of the short note.

" _Apparently the Lanais accused Blaise and Draco of abusing Potter and took him with them while inciting the guardia to detain the boys at Lanai Manor. They have been put under house arrest and since Potter is here, they will have gone against it._  
_I am unsure as to what exactly happened but it will be a while until Potter will be conscious and responsive again. I advise you to get in contact with the headmistress and the minister, they are informed of the situation and may be swayed to lend their assistance._  
_Certainly your boys will need it as soon as the guardia recaptures them._

 _Yours,_  
_Severus Snape_ "

Narcissa blinked rapidly, still trying to bring what she had just heard into some context that made sense. Of course she had expected another dark family to learn of their secret and try and take Potter from them, that was why they hadn't told anyone about where to find the boy after all.

But this! The Lanais were not even enemies of their families! They were related to the Zabinis, the head of the family was Blaise's uncle for heaven's sake! Why would they out of everyone do this to them? And why were the guardia involved? The laws were not so different from the ones in England after all. Whatever had happened, the guardia should not have interfered!  
And who, by Morgaine's wrath, had had the splendid idea of bringing in McGonagall? Or the Minister? After all it wasn't as if the two of them held dark families in high esteem, not to mention families that had been strongly linked to the dark lord, had belonged to his innermost circle.

Well. Taking a deep breath Narcissa attempted to calm. Whatever had happened, it could have been worse, she reminded herself. Draco was alive and well. As was Blaise. Everything else they could handle.

Of course the last thing she or Lucius could need right now was to have their family name mentioned in association with the abuse of a submissive, especially if that submissive was the acclaimed Boy-Who-Lived-Half-A-Dozen-Times-More-Often-Than-He-Should-Have. Already the mood in the wizarding community was more volatile and far more difficult to handle than an Erumpent-horn. A mere push in the wrong direction and it would all explode into their faces.

Still. It was a basis on which they could work. As long as the boys were alive and well, a Black could work with anything.

Next to her, Amalyne pursed her lips, a frown marring her face.  
"Narcissa…" She said hesitantly, speaking slowly with carefully chosen words, "it might be better if you stayed here and secured Potter for Blaise and Draco. Let me deal with my late husband's family and the guardia."

Preposterous, Narcissa huffed affronted and raised her chin, glaring at the dark witch. Of course she wouldn't leave her boy to face all this on his own. And Blaise. What the two of them must have gone through, betrayed by their family, having to go against such powerful wizards. They were children still, for god's sake, and now they would need their parents'assistance with all their legal trouble if nothing else.

"No, listen," Amalyne pressed when Narcissa made to interrupt, "so shortly after the war it would not be wise for you to seek the help of former enemies. And you have no way of getting to Italy, you _know_ the ministry won't give you leave to use a portkey, especially not in the middle of the night. But I do already have a portkey to Zabini Manor."

"But…"

"Narcissa," Amalyne said urgently, and with a hint of anger in her usually so soft voice. But a moment later, her features softened and she pulled her friend's hands between hers, despite Narcissa's obvious reluctance to allow it.

"I really hate to say this, but neither the headmistress, the minister, the guardia nor the Aurors will be inclined to be accommodating if you came along, not with your history. Besides you cannot even speak Italian!"

More than a bit hurt but unable to refute the harsh words, Narcissa glared at the dark-skinned woman. All of it may be true, but it didn't mean that she couldn't help. She was still a Malfoy, a Black by birth. She knew how to navigate the tricky swamps of diplomacy and politics. And she was Draco's _mother_.  
Narcissa told her friend as much, with a frosty voice and steely glare.

Amalyne sighed. "I know you want to see for yourself that your son is well, to help. But right now you'd only be making it worse. I ask you to let me do this Narcissa; for your son's sake as well as mine." She begged, gently squeezing the other's hands. "We don't know what happened or why. I will seek out the minister and then travel to Italy. I promise I will clear up this misunderstanding and I will send you a House Elf with a two-way mirror to keep you updated."

Narcissa lowered her gaze. It was true that Shacklebolt and McGonagall were more likely to hex than help her, regardless of what she might be able to offer them. The press, the Aurors, the guardia… there was no one she could call upon as a Malfoy.

History is told by the victors and she had been on the losing side of a war only recently. It would take time and a lot of careful manoeuvring for the Malfoys to return to any position of power again.

Of course Amalyne's reputation had suffered as well, and not only because of the engagement between her son and a known Death-Eater. But she had still leverage in certain circles.

That didn't mean that she had to like having to give in, or that she trusted Amalyne entirely with this. She could be ruthless and egoistic and Narcissa was afraid of what she might do if their interests ever clashed. Well, she could only hope that this point in time hadn't arrived with their current crisis.

For a few more moments her gaze bore into the firm black eyes, then finally she relented.  
"You need to find out why your family would do this, Lyn."

Amalyne's lips twitched into a harsh, cruel smile. "I will."

Narcissa didn't appreciate the haughtiness, this was not a time for pride, but for careful planning and manoeuvring. "Don't underestimate them." She cautioned indignantly. "In Italy, their word holds more power than yours."

Again that haunting half-smile. "Don't worry. As soon as Potter wakes, he will be able to witness to what really happened and he will be believed. In the meantime, you should make sure that Potter remembers everything _the right way_."  
Amalyne stepped closer, grasping Narcissa's shoulder and letting her strong hands run over her upper arms. Her eyes glistened like the scales of a black mamba. "Secure him for our boys, Narcissa. That way you can help Draco, Blaise and Lucius."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as always I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions!
> 
> SEARCHING FOR A BETA
> 
> On another note: I'd be really greateful if one of you, preferably someone with English as their first language, would agree to beta me. I have the feeling that my English is deteriorating as there is no one to correct me, and I mean in more than just grammar. I would like to keep improving, therefore I need someone who would tell me if there was something that could be phrased better or described via idioms that I often don't know. So really: I'm not only searching for beta to correct mistakes, I'm searching for a harsh critic who loves the colour red!
> 
> If any of you are interested, please send me an email (the address is on my profile)


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